I agree that something is wonky in Scouting in FM24. After banging my head against the wall with focuses that didn't update at all I've had some success recently doing a technique i saw on a youtube video.
Basically create the recruitment focuses you want (but make sure you check the box to EXCLUDE results from other focuses so you dont get duplicates), wait for a week or so for the In Progress to populate then manually scan and move the best looking ones from there into a shortlist to manually scout. After that just delete the recruitment focus and repeat as needed (ideally with different scouts selected or different region focuses for new results).
Usually ongoing but I don't think it really matters as you will be ending and replacing the recruitment focus with a new one before it completes. That is what seems to help with getting your scouts to bring you new players to investigate further. Look up Ironowl on YouTube and you'll see the videos with the full guide of how to it works...it's still a pain compared to old FM though.