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The impact of deprivation on attainment is well understood and addressed through the Strategic Attainment Challenge Programme. The Scottish Government implements a range of policies, including Free School Meals, to mitigate the impact of poverty on pupils, support readiness to learn and contribute to the aims of the Scottish Attainment Challenge to close the poverty-related attainment gap. Taken together, these measures form part of our wider approach to equity in education and support our ongoing work to close the poverty-related- attainment gap. A summative evaluation report on the Scottish Attainment Challenge was published on 17 March, highlighting significant system-wide progress in embedding a culture of equity in Scotland’s education system and can be accessed on gov.scot.

While the Scottish Government does not evaluate the impact of Free School Meals on attainment, it does collect annual data on the number of registrations and uptake of meals, which are published on gov.scot. This helps inform decisions on future expansion of the programme.

Individual Local Authorities, as employers, are responsible for managing teaching vacancies and providing job opportunities across Scotland. Teaching vacancies are advertised across Scotland, throughout the year, through a process of fair and open recruitment. Local authorities must balance the teaching jobs they advertise with their local needs and contexts, including the type of contracts and posts they make available.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes annual data on the number of teachers employed across Scotland’s 32 Local Authorities through the Annual Teacher Census. This data can be accessed at: https://www.gov.scot/collections/school-education-statistics/

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of teacher permanence, and the stability and assurance this brings to teachers. That is why we continue to invest £186.5 million to help restore teacher numbers. We continue to work closely with COSLA on medium and long-term joint workforce planning, which will take into account the importance of responding to issues such as teacher permanence.

The Scottish Government’s national guidance on mobile phones in schools supports schools and local authorities to put in place approaches that best meet the needs of their pupils and communities.

Decisions on whether to introduce measures such as lockable pouches remain a matter for individual schools and local authorities. Restrictions currently vary across Scotland, and the use of lockable pouches is one option that can be considered by local authorities as part of their wider engagement and assessment work.

The Scottish Government does not intend to prepare a public sector bid for the Northern Isles Ferry Services 4 contract. Candidates invited to submit a tender will be selected using the Single Procurement Document process in accordance with the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.

As with other areas of local service delivery, responsibility for decisions about the use of commercial technology providers in schools, including procurement arrangements, rests with local authorities as part of their statutory role in delivering education. The Scottish Government does not oversee or approve individual commercial partnerships entered into by councils.

We are making progress to meet our commitment to halve the disability employment gap by 2038 to 18.7 p.p. The disability employment rate gap is estimated to have reduced by 5.8 percentage points (p.p.) from 37.4 p.p. in January to December 2016 (our baseline year) to 31.5 p.p. in January to December 2024, and the interim milestone to increase the employment rate for disabled people to 50 per cent by 2023 was met one year early in 2022. Between 2018 and 2024 the Workplace Equality Fund (WEF) provided over £3.1 million funding to 71 projects to reduce labour market barriers for priority groups - providing support, training and advice on workplace culture, to enhance retention and progression of disabled staff.

We have also developed a Fair Work digital resource hub, designed to provide information and signpost to support on the implementation of fair work practices within organisations across Scotland. This includes information on inclusive recruitment and reasonable adjustments for disabled employees. We have provided investment of £5 million in 2025-26 for the delivery of Specialist Employability Support in every Local Authority area, and this is protected in our draft budget for 2026-27. This budget ensures every Local Employability Partnership has funding to implement place and train approaches to support for disabled people and people with long term health conditions.

Local authorities are independent data controllers for their use of digital learning platforms in schools are responsible for ensuring that any processing of pupils’ personal data complies with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Recommendation 40 in the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) recommends that safety, resilience and reliability improvements are made to both routes. This will include, but is not limited to improving junctions, enhancing overtaking opportunities and widening or realigning carriageways to alleviate pinch points such as narrow structures or at stretches of older standard single carriageway.

This recommendation is underway and Transport Scotland are currently exploring the development of previous schemes along the A77, as part of a wider assessment of these and new potential improvements on a route wide basis. This is so that they can be prioritised for improvement, beyond general maintenance schemes.

The Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline, published alongside the Scottish Budget on the 13 January 2026, includes transport projects and programmes including a commitment to develop the necessary business case(s) for improvements to both the A75 and A77. This commitment is aligned to the Scottish Government’s whole portfolio of infrastructure investments, the Spending Review and STPR2.

As part of the record funding package for Local Government, in 2026-27, Highland Council will receive £665.1 million to fund local services which equates to an extra £32.3 million or an additional 5.1% compared to 2025-26.

The vast majority of funding available to councils is provided by means of a block grant from the Scottish Government with the Scottish Budget also providing Councils with full discretion over decisions on Council Tax. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on the maintenance of roads and bridges, on the basis of local needs and priorities.

The information requested is included in the National Improvement Framework Interactive Evidence Report (NIFIER). This can be accessed via the following link: National Improvement Framework Interactive Evidence Report

To download the data go to the Data tab. Under Select Outcome choose "NIF Key Measures" and under Select Measure choose "Percentage of secondary school leavers in a positive initial destination".

Currently there is only LA level data published for this indicator for 2023-24. There is a planned update to the NIFIER on 14 April 2026 and at this point data will be added for 2024-25 and earlier years.