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The Scottish Government utilises a Block Grant system, affording local authorities significant autonomy in allocating financial resources, including those designated for youth work. This approach empowers councils to prioritise local needs and tailor services accordingly, while fulfilling mandatory obligations and adhering to nationally-agreed priorities.

Examples of direct Scottish Government support include:

• £106m+ to 115 organisations, supporting children and families across Scotland from our Children, Young People, Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Third Sector Fund (CYPFEI & ALEC) since its launch in 2016. £6m in core funding to 22 new organisations supporting children, families, young people and adult learners from our Children, Young People, Families and Adult Learning Third Sector Fund in 2023-24.
• £19m to support 72,000 young people through youth work from the CashBack for Communities Fund over the last three years.
• A further commitment of up to £20m from our CashBack for Communities Fund for 2023-26 to provide support to 29 youth work organisations to deliver a wide range of trauma-informed and person-centred services and activities for young people.
• £1m+ to YouthLink Scotland and Youth Scotland in 2023-24 to support core funding and provide high quality training with a focus on equality and inclusion for youth work staff and volunteers.
• £1m of capital investment in digital inclusion between 2022-24 for community learning providers, including youth work organisations.

Furthermore, an independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD), encompassing youth work, was launched in December 2023 and is expected to conclude in June 2024. This review aims to assess the impact of CLD on learners across Scotland, providing valuable insights for the future.

An independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD) was launched in December 2023 and is expected to conclude in June 2024. This review aims to assess the impact of CLD on learners across Scotland and is likely to consider the regulatory framework alongside other aspects of the current approach to CLD, taking the original commitment further and providing valuable insights for the future.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The Student Loan Company (SLC) collects and publishes data on student loan outlays, repayments, and borrower activity for Scottish SLC customers each year.

This includes information on the total student Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) loan [1] outlay each financial year, the average loan balance of borrowers, borrower repayment status, repayment amounts, and average repayment amount by repayment method. All of which can be found in the Student Loans for Higher Education in Scotland: Financial Year 2022-23 publication.

SLC does not publish information on missed payments, nor on the collection rate of repayments.

[1] Loans for which the required repayments are based on the borrower’s income.

An independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD), was launched in December 2023 and is expected to conclude in June 2024. This review aims to assess the impact of CLD on learners across Scotland which will provide valuable insights for the delivery of CLD in a reformed education system.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The Student Loans Company (SLC) collects and publishes data on student loan outlays, repayments, and borrower activity for Scottish SLC customers each year.

Student Loans in Scotland: Financial Year 2022-23 (Table 3) provides (i) the number and (ii) the percentage of borrower who received loans as Scottish domiciled students studying in the UK or as EU domiciled students studying in Scotland by repayment status.

Note: These statistics only include information on loan products and do not include information regarding grants and bursaries which make up part of the student support package offered to students in Scotland.

Our commitment to free tuition means that unlike elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt of up to £27,750, and average student loan debt for Scottish students is the lowest in the UK at around a third of the level seen in England.

In Labour-run Wales, the cap on tuition fees is to rise from £9,000 to £9,250 per year, which will only increase student debt levels.

The latest Student Loans Company figures published in June 2023 show that the current average student loan debt for Scottish borrowers on entry into repayment is £15,430. This compares to £44,940 in England, £35,780 in Wales and £24,500 in Northern Ireland.

We have recently announced that from the start of the 2024-25 academic year we will introduce a Special Support Loan across the main undergraduate and postgraduate packages of support.

The Special Support Loan will be equivalent to £2,400 and will be for the purpose of covering costs related to travel, childcare and study equipment – costs which are disregarded by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) when assessing benefit entitlement. This means that students in higher education who remain entitled to welfare benefits whilst they study can access this additional support without any further reduction in their benefit entitlement.

The student loan repayment threshold will also increase from £27,660 to £31,395 from April this year as per the terms set out in the Repayment of Student Loans (Scotland) Regulations 2000.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information . The Student Loans Company (SLC) collects and publishes data on student loan outlays, repayments, and borrower activity for Scottish domiciled SLC customers each year.

Student Loans in Scotland: Financial Year 2022-23 (Table 2 ), provides (i) the number of borrowers with cancellations, write-offs or refunds and (ii) the average amount cancelled, written-off or refunded of borrowers who received loans as Scottish domiciled students studying in the UK or as EU domiciled students studying in Scotland each financial year.

The Scottish Government uses Student Loans Company (SLC) statistics to inform a number of workstreams.

The Scottish Government is currently undertaking a Student Finance and Wellbeing Study (SFWS) for Scotland for academic year 23/24 to gather evidence on students’ experiences of finance – their income, expenditure debt and financial wellbeing. This will be used to provide up-to-date data on the financial situation of students in Scotland and provide evidence to inform the delivery of student support policy.

This research is due to be published in a Scottish Government Social Research Report in late summer 2024. Its outputs will inform, together with wider evidence available, future policy development and reform in the student support landscape.

The last study of this type was the Scotland specific Student Income and Expenditure Survey published in 2009 , which examined Scottish-domiciled higher and further education students’ finances, particularly their income, expenditure, debt and savings, and their attitudes to the financing of study in Scotland.