Cost of living support for schools and families

The Scottish Government has set out spending plans for 2023-24 with a budget of £4.85 billion for education and skills, to help with the cost of living crisis.

These include expansion of free school meals in primary schools, holiday food provision and investment to ensure the school clothing grant national minimum of £120 for primary pupils and £150 for secondary pupils.

New investment will see free school meals expanded to primary six and seven pupils in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment – the next step in Scottish Government plans to deliver universal free school meals in primary schools.

It also includes £22 million of continued support to provide meals during the school holidays to children who need them most, along with £200 million for the Scottish Attainment Challenge.

In addition, the budget allocates £50 million of funding to continue to support the Whole Family Wellbeing programme of activity, a key pillar of The Promise, to support families to thrive.

The measures set out in the budget to help reduce the cost of school include providing more than £13 million to uprate the School Clothing Grant in line with inflation.

Investing an additional £16 million resource and £80 million capital to fund the expansion of Free School Meals for all Primary 6 and 7 pupils in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment, as the next step in fulfilling the commitment to universal provision in primary schools.

Continuing to invest £22 million to provide meals during school holidays to the children who need them most.

Maintaining subsidy arrangements for the provision of milk and working with partners on a phased approach to the delivery of a universal milk scheme, aligned to the expansion of free school meals.

Investing £20 million towards the commitment to ensure every school-aged child, over the lifetime of the parliament, has access to a digital device to support their learning

Investment of nearly £2 billion towards Scotland’s universities and colleges to support delivery of high-quality education and training. This includes a cash increase of £20 million in the Higher Education resource budget compared to 2022-23, and a cash increase of £33.7 million in the Further Education resource and capital budget.