Lead Scotland’s Manifesto 2026: A Right to Learn

We want a fair society where disabled people and carers have an equal opportunity to learn, participate and achieve their potential.

As the Scottish Parliament elections approach on Thursday 7th May 2026, we have decided to publish our own manifesto for change. We consulted staff and stakeholders online, in person and via video conferencing to find out what changes they wanted to see over the course of the next parliamentary term. We asked what they wanted to see candidates commit to and support in promoting fairer access to post school learning for disabled people and carers.

Six key priorities emerged from the feedback:

• Guarantee Digital Inclusion

• Offer more accessible and flexible learning choices

• Improve transitions for young disabled people

• Strengthen communities and tackle loneliness

• Deliver fair sustainable funding

• Improve access to justice for disabled people

Click on the link below to read further detail about what changes we want to see, why it matters and what you told us.

 

You can also click the below link to access a letter template to use to contact your local candidates to ask them to stand up for disabled people and commit to these changes. In the Scottish Parliament elections, 8 MSP’s represent you – one constituency MSP and seven regional MSPs. You can find all the candidates for your local area by clicking on this ‘Who can I vote for’ link and typing in your postcode.

If candidates come knocking at your door to canvas for your vote, you may want to consider asking them the following questions:

What will your party do to make post-school learning more accessible for disabled people?

 

 

We call upon parties to commit to the following six priorities:

1. Guarantee digital inclusion

• Support everyone to live digitally in society and keep safe online, especially older and disabled people.
• Provide sustainable funding streams to address digital poverty.
• Ensure affordable access to up-to-date devices and reliable Wi-Fi.
• Fund one-to-one support and on-going training for disabled people and carers who need it.
• A right to digital choice: people must be able to access public services offline as well as online.

2. Offer more accessible and flexible learning choices

• Ensure post-school learning provision is genuinely accessible for disabled people, with sufficient funding, timely needs assessments, delivery of effective support, on-going lived experience-led training, and robust quality assurance and compliance processes.
• Increase the salary threshold for inflation to access the Part-time Fee Grant for part time high education courses.
• Offer more remote and flexible learning options, building on what was introduced during COVID, so disabled learners and carers can fit study around health and caring responsibilities.
• Provide longer-term, meaningful learning options for disabled learners beyond life skills and employability courses – including progression routes into further learning, work, volunteering, and community participation.

3. Improve transitions for young disabled people

• Ensure appropriate information, advice and guidance is available at the right time.
• Ensure the young person is at the centre of the process, their voice is heard and their choices explored.
• Establish well-resourced transition teams in every local authority, supporting young disabled people moving into post-school life.
• Explore developing a national passport of needs, co-produced with learners and carers, to reduce administrative burden for disabled people.
• Provide more options for post-school provision for young disabled people with complex needs.
• Fund more specialist colleges like Coresford College.

4. Strengthen communities and tackle loneliness

• Invest in community-based learning services for adults as there is strong emphasis on young people.
• Fund opportunities that tackle social isolation and loneliness.
• Provide carers with proper respite and support so they can participate in learning and community opportunities.
• Create more accessible community spaces with strong WI-FI coverage.
• Develop better transport links in rural areas to allow more people to access community spaces and adult learning opportunities.
• Ensure Adult Learning strategies value volunteering and taking part in community life alongside employability-based provision.

5. Deliver fair sustainable funding

• Provide multi 3-5 year funding so services can develop, recruit and retain staff and prevent learners from facing sudden closures.
• Give community-based adult learning a fairer share of Scotland’s post-school learning budget.
• Make funding applications consistent and streamline reporting requirements across local authorities.

6. Improve access to justice for disabled students

• Reform legal aid in Scotland to increase access to funded legal advice, assistance and representation for disabled students.
• Make Alternative Dispute Resolution available for disabled students in dispute with their education providers.
• Move beyond consultation without change: government must act on disabled students’ voices, not just collect them.
• Pay or fairly recognise disabled people and carers when they share lived experience to inform policies and develop resources.
• Commit to implementing independent oversight of disability support at colleges and universities to reduce complaints, avoid disputes and improve experiences and outcomes for disabled students.