The annual budget for helping disadvantaged pupils to stay in education in Scotland has fallen by nearly £8 million over the past decade, new figures have revealed.

The amount spent on supporting teenagers to take part in school was £5.7m less last year than in 2006-07 - a fall of 24.7 per cent.

At the same time, the number of claimants saw a much smaller decline, at 12.1 per cent.

When the cost of supporting 16-19-year-old college students to stay in education is included, the amount spent in 2016-17 was £7.8m less than in 2006-7 - a 24 per cent fall.

This compares with a 15.5 per cent drop in the number of claimants over the same period.

The figures, published today, show the financial support available to teenagers who claim the £30 weekly educational maintenance allowance (EMA), or take part in activity agreements - the agreements designed to keep the teenagers at greatest risk of becoming unemployed engaged in education.

EMA was scrapped in England in 2010.

In Scotland, the number of teenagers aged 16-19 fell by 10 per cent between 2010 and 2016, according to the Scottish government.

The government also said more young people were going into work and taking other opportunities, such as pursuing modern apprenticeships, which meant they were not eligible for the EMA.

The figures also show the recipients of EMAs are more likely now to live in areas of deprivation than they were a decade ago.

In 2016-17, 34.9 per cent of school pupils, or those on activity agreements claiming the EMA, lived in the 20 per cent most-deprived areas of Scotland - an increase of nearly 9 percentage points compared with 2006-07.

The EMA programme, introduced in 2004, aims to provide support for young people aged 16-19 from low-income families to overcome financial barriers to stay on in education - either in school or on a college course, or taking up an activity agreement.

Last year, 70 per cent of the £24.6m spent on EMAs went to school pupils and those on activity agreements.