Motions, questions and answers

The Scottish Government recognises that supporting labour market participation and reducing economic inactivity requires a concerted approach from a range of services, including employability, health and childcare. We are currently taking action to support this, and have committed to doing more through our Programme for Government. For example, we have set out plans to improve access to health services by April 2025, and to implement specialist employability support for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions across all 32 local authorities by Summer 2025.We publish statistics on the impact of our devolved employability services on a quarterly basis. The most recent publication, which covers up to June 2024, shows that Fair Start Scotland has supported 22,875 job starts since April 2018, and that No One Left Behind has supported 20,743 people to enter employment since April 2019. Although Fair Start Scotland has closed to new referrals, those on the service continue to be entitled to the full offer of support.No One Left Behind reports on the economic status and long-term health conditions of participants and at the point of accessing services, with 14,025 reporting as economically inactive and 16,594 people reporting a long-term health condition. We will begin to include data on the outcomes achieved by those who are economically inactive at the time of entering No One Left Behind in the coming financial year.Furthermore, the latest ELC census shows that uptake of the funded ELC offer for 3 and 4 year olds remains near-universal at an estimated 95% of children within that age group, and the latest parent survey shows the 74% of parents using funded ELC said that the funded offer enabled them to work or look for work.