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No One Left Behind is a place-based approach which sees decisions about services taken locally.

Design and delivery of employability services that meet the needs of users and local labour markets is the responsibility of the Local Employability Partnership (LEP). To support this, and ensure national coherence, we co-designed employability service standards with partners and users. LEPs are required to uphold the expectations set out in the service standards, including ensuring their services are accessible and take account of the experience of users across every area of Scotland.

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

We will consider the recommendations from the implementation evaluation of No One Left Behind and the Young Person’s Guarantee, alongside the outputs from our recent national stakeholder discussion events and actions will be reviewed to identify how we can improve.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with local government partners in each local authority to promote and drive an increase in the reach of our services across all of Scotland.

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. This includes people with disabilities or long-term health conditions. We engaged with all Scottish Local Authorities when we undertook reviews in the delivery of Supported Employment and Individual Placement and Support (IPS) to consider the most appropriate approach for improved outcomes.

Supported employment including IPS can offer assistance to those requiring intensive and specific help. Officials are working with a range of partners to develop and expand our 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 local partners.

In addition, we are considering the recommendations from the implementation evaluation of No One Left Behind and the Young Person’s Guarantee, alongside the outputs from our recent national stakeholder discussion events and actions will be reviewed to identify improvement measures.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with local employability partners in each local authority to promote and drive an increase in the reach of our services across all of Scotland.

At a local level, Local Employability Partnerships will deliver a mixed economy of provision bringing together a range of partners including, third sector organisations, ensuring that they continue to have a core role in provision of support based on local demand.

We recognise the important role the third sector can play in supporting people to access support they are entitled to and are committed to working in partnership to develop our devolved approach to employability.

Both Scottish and Local Government have been clear that No One Left Behind will deliver a mixed economy of provision at a local level, meaning organisations including those in the third sector can continue to have a role in providing support based on local demand.

At a local level, Local Employability Partnerships (LEPs) bring together a range of partners including the third sector to build local capacity and take a collective leadership approach to decision making within their local areas to meet service user and labour market needs.

Data collected is recorded as a collective for 16–24-year-olds and not broken down by funding stream. Therefore, we are not able to provide a breakdown of training opportunities that are funded through Young Person’s Guarantee. Our Devolved Employment Services: statistical summaries, which included data on‎ 16–24-year-olds, are published quarterly and are available on our gov.scot website.

The Scottish Government has robust processes in place for assessing outcomes, performance and value for money in relation to expenditure from Portfolio budgets.

Accountable Officers are in place to ensure that public money is used efficiently and effectively in line with guidance published in the Scottish Public Finance Manual. This includes scrutinising significant policy proposals or plans to start or vary major projects/policies, and then assess whether they measure against the required standards for regularity, propriety, value for money and feasibility.

As you will be aware, the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework tracks progress toward our national outcomes and the associated national indicators. There are further tools that are more specific to the Education and Skills portfolio. For example, the primary purpose of the National Improvement Framework since January 2016 has been to bring together an enhanced range of information and data at all levels of the system, to drive improvement for children and young people in early learning and childcare settings, schools, and colleges across the whole of Scotland.

Furthermore, all recipients of grant funding receive letters which clearly outline their objectives and expected outcomes from the funding and targets/milestones in which progress against these objectives and outcomes will be measured.

The Scottish Government defines the poverty-related attainment gap as the gap in attainment between children and young people living in the most and least parts of the country based on Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) data. The most affluent being those living in SIMD quintile 1; and the least in SIMD quintile 5.

It is important to be able to measure the impact of the system on progress towards closing the poverty-related attainment gap. That is why in 2017, the Scottish Government consulted on proposals for measuring the poverty-related attainment gap and milestones towards closing it, focusing on the impact of the education system as a whole and using a range of 11 measures that reflect key stages of the learner journey and the breadth of issues that can impact on attainment.

These measures are:

1. 27-30 month review (children showing no concerns across all domains)

2. HWB: Children total difficulties score (age 4-12)

3. HWB: Children total difficulties score (age 13&15)

4. Primary - Literacy (P1, P4, P7 combined)

5. Primary - Numeracy (P1, P4, P7 combined)

6. Secondary - Literacy (S3, 3rd level or better)

7. Secondary - Numeracy (S3, 3rd level or better)

8. SCQF 4 or above (1 or more on leaving school)

9. SCQF 5 or above (1 or more on leaving school)

10. SCQF 6 or above (1 or more on leaving school)

11. Participation measure

We identified eleven key measures to assess progress as part of the National Improvement Framework , along with associated stretch aims. We held a further consultation in summer 2022 which resulted in two new key measures being added for 2023.

Those measures are:

1. School Attendance

2. Initial Positive destination

The SQA will oversee the exam diet in 2025. Legislation establishing the new qualifications body will be introduced this parliamentary year enabling the new qualifications body to be established in late 2025.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) are currently working with the sector to better identify those who leave college, including those who move on to work opportunities or other positive destinations. This work is ongoing and the information will be made available by SFC through Official Statistics products in due course.

The intention is for the Scottish Qualifications Authority to continue to operate at the time of the 2024 and 2025 exam diets, with the new qualifications body being established in late 2025, after the 2025 exam diet.

The new body will therefore be responsible for overseeing the 2026 exam diet.