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The Scottish Government has regular meetings with both College Employers Scotland and the representative campus trade unions, where a number of broad workforce issues are discussed.

Given there is no timeframe set out in your question, I have provided a note of all meetings for the 2023 calendar year where pay and industrial relations within the sector was discussed since I have taken up office as Minister for Higher Education and Further Education.

Between November 2020 and March 2023, awareness of the Young Person’s Guarantee among employability staff was achieved using existing networks and communication channels. There was no funding allocated to the specific promotion of the Young Person’s Guarantee aimed at employability staff.

The Scottish Government expects the outstanding responses by the end of the year.

The Scottish Government announced the launch of the Young Person’s Guarantee in November 2020, with the aim of protecting young people against the immediate economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Guarantee aimed to ensure every young person between 16 and 24 had the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training or volunteering. Between November 2020 and March 2023 we invested over £175m in additional support from Covid-related funding.

We have now mainstreamed this work across Government and, through our championing of the payment of the real Living Wage (which has a higher hourly rate than the National Living Wage), we continue to promote increases in young people’s earnings.

The Scottish Government has provided a total of £4,367,590.00 of grant funding to the Association for Real Change (ARC) Scotland between 1 April 2013-30 September 2023 to support a number of areas of their work. This is broken down per financial year as follows:

The Review of Purpose Built Student Accommodation has now concluded. The recommendations formulated by the Review Steering Group have been submitted to Ministers for consideration. A Ministerial response to the recommendations will follow in due course.

The Scottish Government works in partnership with Local Government and Local Employability Partners to offer key worker led, person-centred holistic support. At a local level they work in communities and with partners to deliver employability services to those who are experiencing or are at risk of becoming long term unemployed and this includes people with disabilities or long-term health conditions.

Supported employment including Individual Placement and Support can offer assistance to those requiring intensive and specific help especially those with severe and enduring mental ill health.

These evidence-based models of delivery help people find or re-enter sustainable employment that fits their needs and interests. It offers intensive, individual support, rapid job search followed by placement in paid employment in the open labour market, and time-unlimited in-work support for both the employee and the employer.

We are working with a range of partners, to inform options on development of the Supported Employment offer which is currently delivered through Fair Start Scotland. From 2024 this type of support will be made available through our No One Left Behind approach with the Local Employability Partnerships.

The most recent data from the Scottish Health Survey on sports participation by children aged between 11 and 15 in each of the last five years is detailed in the following table.

Learning and evaluation continue to be a key aspect of our approach to employability services in Scotland.

The Implementation evaluation of the development and early delivery of No One Left Behind and the Young Person’s Guarantee was commissioned by the Scottish Government and published on 10 August 2023.

We will consider the recommendations from the evaluation alongside the outputs from our recent national stakeholder discussion events and actions will be reviewed to identify how we can improve.

Data collection and reporting for devolved employability services delivered under the No One Left Behind approach occurs quarterly, with provision in all 32 Local Authority areas aligning with the Employability Shared Measurement Framework. To support this, we have worked with Local Authorities in their Lead Accountable Body role to develop a single reporting template, and accompanying guidance, which has been made publicly available. This reporting contributes to our quarterly statistical publication.

Data collection and reporting has been a key theme identified in our recent national stakeholder discussion events and the actions will be reviewed to identify how we can improve. This will be outlined in the Strategic Plan and National Improvement Plan which will be published later this financial year.

We will continue to work with partners to refine data collection and reporting practices, including identifying where additional support would be beneficial.