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Miles Briggs has raised the subject of attendance, which has been a real challenge in our schools after the pandemic in particular, although members will welcome the fact that there was a slight improvement in the most recent dataset, particularly on persistent absence levels. I agreed with officials to introduce that measurement the year before last, I think, because, until it was introduced, we did not measure persistent absences from school over a long period—of 20 days, I think—at the national level. We need that granularity in the data.

That dataset demonstrates the point that has been made on variance across the country: there is variance by year group. The thing that struck me most when I was first appointed to my role was the existence of challenges in relation to attendance at certain transition periods. Whether in primary 7 or S3, there seemed to be a drop-off in attendance. We have been considering that. Education Scotland undertook a deep dive on attendance, about which David Gregory may want to say more; however, more broadly, PEF is being used to respond to some of the challenges of attendance across the country. In the school in which I last taught, in Edinburgh, PEF is being used creatively to support families.

Legislation requires parents and carers to send their children and young people to school, and that is for good reason, but a cohort of young people are struggling with the formality of going back to formal education. For many, that is really challenging. We therefore have to put in place the necessary supports. To take Keith Brown’s point on nuance, that will depend on the pupil, the school and the teacher. I have sat in primary schools and listened to headteachers talk about the individual work that they do to support a young person to come back into school, which can take many months. PEF is supporting some of those interventions. More broadly, there has also been support through the virtual school headteachers network, which has helped to keep young people engaged in school if they are not physically able to attend.

However, I accept that the issue is a challenge. I announced in the Parliament very recently that we would have a national marketing campaign to encourage an improvement in attendance. I hope to say more on that in the coming weeks. We cannot make progress on closing the poverty-related attainment gap if we have challenges in attendance.

All those things are interlinked. Across the country, PEF is being used to improve attendance. Every local authority has a stretch aim, which is linked to the SEF and is focused on attendance. They are all signed up to driving improvement on that.

David Gregory may want to say more on the deep dive that Education Scotland undertook.

We would have to reflect on that, and I would have to take advice on an alternative recruitment process.

Are you asking about the move from the nine authorities to the wider—

It might be an issue for the local authority. I am happy to pick up the specifics of that with Ms Duncan-Glancy if she shares details with me and officials after the meeting. However, Alison Taylor might want to come in on that point, as I can see her nodding.

Thank you, convener, and happy new year to you and to committee members.

As the First Minister outlined on Monday, this budget is rooted in delivery and hope, and it has been drafted in response to the views of a multitude of stakeholders across Scotland and to those of members from across the chamber.

The education and skills budget is no different. Mr Dey, Ms Don-Innes and I have listened intently to the views and asks of teachers, schools, local authorities, early learning and childcare providers, universities, colleges and the wider skills system. The draft budget for my portfolio for 2025-26 reflects those views and seeks to go some way towards addressing the challenges that we face across the education sector, particularly following the pandemic.

I will begin by setting out the resource and capital position for the portfolio. The education and skills resource budget has increased by £158 million, which is equivalent to a 3 per cent real-terms increase. In addition, overall capital and resource has increased by £116 million. For early years, we continue to invest in a high-quality funded early learning and childcare offer and our wider family support offer. Overall, the Scottish Government will invest more than £1 billion in high-quality funded ELC from next year.

The 2025-26 draft budget also provides an investment of £8 million in our six early adopter communities in Dundee, Inverclyde, Clackmannanshire, Glasgow, Fife and Shetland. The draft budget also includes funding to provide local authorities with an additional £9.7 million from 2025-26 to increase pay for early learning and childcare workers delivering funded childcare, so that they earn at least the real living wage from April, as well as ensuring that children’s social care staff employed in the private, voluntary and independent sector will also receive the real living wage.

The budget invests in our schools, teachers and support staff. It includes £186.5 million for councils to maintain teacher numbers, and it speaks to the asks made by local government as part of the biggest recorded settlement made to local government in Scotland.

The budget includes £29 million of additionality for additional support needs, including funding to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce. I know that that issue is of interest to the committee, so I hope that members will welcome the steps that the Government is taking through this budget to provide more support for ASN.

That funding is part of a wider package and deal agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. That deal is predicated on trust and will see the Scottish Government and COSLA working together to restore and maintain teacher numbers at 2023 levels, freeze learning hours and make meaningful progress in reducing teacher class contact time. Importantly, that deal also includes a provision for the creation of an educational assurance board, which will allow local and national Government to collaborate better on educational improvement, noting the legal responsibilities shared by both.

In addition, we continue with our investment of £1 billion in the Scottish attainment challenge over the course of this Parliament to support closing the poverty-related attainment gap, with £130 million in this budget earmarked for the pupil equity fund being allocated directly to head teachers for activities on the ground that will close the poverty-related attainment gap in their schools.

Committee members will note that the most recent statistics, from December, show that we now have the narrowest attainment gap ever recorded between the most and least disadvantaged pupils. That should be welcomed, as should the statistics showing that we have the highest levels of literacy and numeracy since records began.

Lastly, we remain committed to supporting a high-quality post-school education, research and skills system with more than £2 billion of investment in further education, higher education and skills. I am sure that the minister will say more about that. We have listened to the asks of the sector and have responded as best we can and with as much flexibility as possible in the current fiscal circumstances. That has included protecting funding for apprenticeships while, at the same time, increasing our core funding for both higher and further education. We also continue to protect free tuition, which means that, unlike students elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt. We have sought, where possible, to respond to specific asks from the sectors and to provide the flexibility that I mentioned.

Like every cabinet secretary, I have been concerned by the United Kingdom Government’s decision to increase employer national insurance contributions, which will hit ELC providers, colleges and universities hardest within my portfolio. We are also still faced with an incredibly challenging fiscal context. Nonetheless, this is a budget that protects education spending throughout the lifetime of a child’s education.

I will finish there, but I look forward to discussing the budget settlement with the convener and committee members in more detail.

I am sorry, but the latest ACEL data statistics, which were published on 10 December, show that the gap between the proportion of primary pupils from the most and least deprived areas achieving expected levels in literacy has decreased to the lowest level on record. We will have to agree to disagree in that respect.

We are starting to see progress. Undoubtedly, progress has been affected by the pandemic. The schools data that the member cites shows progress on attainment compared with 2019. It is difficult to make comparisons with the exam results in some of the more recent years because of the different arrangements that were in place during the pandemic, but we are starting to see real progress.

The member also spoke about international league tables. It is worth pointing out that there has been an increase in funding in the budget because we are rejoining two of the international league tables that she mentions, which will provide greater clarity. The December 2023 programme for international student assessment—PISA—statistics, show that the post-pandemic picture in Scotland is similar to the position in other countries. Of course, the OECD described that edition of the PISA results as the Covid edition. We really need to be mindful of the impact that the pandemic has had. However, we are starting to see real progress in terms of that narrowing gap, and that is certainly to be welcomed.

I conclude by noting that the ACEL data is predicated on teacher judgment. We all trust Scotland’s teachers to make those judgments, and that is certainly to be welcomed, too.

On ASN, it is not my understanding that the £29 million funding includes the specialist provision that goes to the individual schools that we fund directly, for example. This is about us providing additionality to local authorities for specialist staff. One of the points that the committee made in its inquiry was that we have seen reductions in relation to the number of specialist staff in our schools, and I accept that. That £29 million is earmarked for that purpose, and we are working with COSLA to identify what those interventions might look like. For example, one of the points that the member has made to me in the chamber concerns the reduction in the number of ASN specialist teachers. I am sympathetic to that point, and I think that some of that £29 million should be used by local authorities to employ more ASN teachers. That is a decision for them, but the funding package gives them the opportunity to do that. They might also want to employ educational psychologists and so on, and they may want to invest in speech and language provision. That is what that £29 million is earmarked for.

There is a programme of work that is currently being led by Education Scotland on PEF sampling, which is essentially to identify the best areas of practice and to lift those up so that others can learn from them. I think that that addresses the member’s point.

There is a range of measures that headteachers across the country are taking. In my experience, PEF is often used to employ additional staff—I think that I mentioned that in response to a previous question. As a result of PEF there are now just over 3,000 additional staff in our schools.

PEF is being used for a variety of interventions. When I go into schools and speak to headteachers, I am always struck by their reliance on the fund. It is hugely important in driving change in our schools and in providing support to our young people, particularly in the post-pandemic period.

Bringing in a funding stream that empowered headteachers and allowed them to make decisions was a real change in culture. The way that we previously funded our schools did not allow for that; there was a quite centralised approach in which local authorities provided funding to schools. Now, headteachers are in the driving seat for making decisions that bring into play interventions to make a real difference.

Earlier this week, I had a discussion with officials on the PEF sampling work that I spoke about. I would be more than happy to share details of that work and where interventions are having the greatest impact, if the committee would like me to do so.

George Adam is absolutely right: if you go into your constituencies and speak to headteachers, you will see the difference that the additional funding is making on the ground. Many headteachers evangelise about the difference that it makes and about the importance of having such additionality in their school community.

The member raises a really important point. It is a broad measure but there are different levels of need in that subset. It is quite a broad measure for good reason: in the past, a number of young people would have completed their school education without ever having the additional support to which they were entitled. It is a good thing that more young people are having their needs met or an identified support need acknowledged and supported in school.

However, the member is right to say that that broad measure perhaps does not tell us the true story. Within that subset, there will be a variance in need. It is important to recognise that the measure covers a variety of different things. For example, gifted children are covered under the ASN measure. We need to be mindful of that when talking about high-tariff young people who might need complex additional support in their school education.

—we are going to make progress on eradicating child poverty through the interventions in this portfolio and the additionality that is coming to the education and skills portfolio. I should say that that has been welcomed by a range of different stakeholders.