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Chamber and committees

Question reference: S6W-33305

  • Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
  • Date lodged: 15 January 2025
  • Current status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 29 January 2025

Question

To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how many children and young people have been placed on part-time timetables in schools in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.


Answer

The number of pupils that have been recorded with a part-time timetable absence code for 1 or more openings (half-day sessions) in each local authority from 2018-19 is set out in the following table.

Local Authority

2018-19

2020-21

2022-23

2023-24

Aberdeen City

175

245

403

566

Aberdeenshire

263

249

522

635

Angus

122

142

229

230

Argyll and Bute

46

75

160

191

City of Edinburgh

223

527

780

986

Clackmannanshire

11

c

12

c

Dumfries and Galloway

34

87

241

619

Dundee City

46

107

164

139

East Ayrshire

219

341

572

627

East Dunbartonshire

27

100

102

138

East Lothian

122

217

250

189

East Renfrewshire

c

18

75

156

Falkirk

72

133

140

104

Fife

86

94

128

76

Glasgow City

100

215

196

350

Grant Aided

0

0

0

0

Highland

264

426

556

623

Inverclyde

46

39

76

168

Midlothian

177

274

305

442

Moray

86

164

187

186

Na h-Eileanan Siar

c

c

7

c

North Ayrshire

49

72

74

113

North Lanarkshire

148

156

253

410

Orkney Islands

16

14

36

60

Perth and Kinross

102

154

257

377

Renfrewshire

44

63

106

119

Scottish Borders

72

113

124

202

Shetland Islands

13

41

34

47

South Ayrshire

13

47

58

97

South Lanarkshire

84

201

447

389

Stirling

75

134

148

205

West Dunbartonshire

39

152

160

270

West Lothian

288

547

995

1094

c = value suppressed to protect against the risk of disclosure of personal information.

Note that information on pupils recorded with a part-time timetable code was not collected centrally by the Scottish Government before the 2018-19 school year. Two new absence codes – part-time timetable (health related) and part-time timetable (exclusion related) – were available for schools to use from the 2018-19 school year. As with any new coding, variation in the use and application of these new absence codes was identified during the quality assurance of the 2018-19 attendance and absence data. There is evidence to suggest that this is still happening, although to a lesser extent.

These part-time timetable absences are part of the ‘other authorised absence’ category for the purposes of reporting in the 2018-19 statistics onwards. The number of absences reported using these new part-time timetable codes was very small so the inclusion of them as ‘other authorised absence’ does not have a large impact on the size or quality of this category.

Furthermore, prior to 2022-23, statistics on school pupil attendance and absence were collected and published biennially. The table above sets out the number of pupils that have been recorded with a part-time timetable absence code for 1 or more openings (i.e. half day) in each school, local authority and school year. However, due to pupils moving schools’ part-way through the school year, some pupils may be double-counted within and across local authorities.