Current status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 22 December 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what (a) support and provisions are in place to enable pupils with additional support needs and disabilities, and their parents, to advocate for additional assessment arrangements, including extra time during exams, (b) mechanisms exist to escalate decisions when young people's needs are not being met, and (c) procedures exist across all local authorities to ensure schools comply with the Equality of Access to Qualifications policy and promote equality of provision.
The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), whose functions will be replaced by Qualifications Scotland early next year, rightly offers a wide range of assessment arrangements to enable learners with additional support needs to demonstrate their knowledge and skills without compromising the integrity of the assessment.
It works with centres (schools, colleges or training providers) to ensure that all learners have the appropriate support they need for their assessments and exams.
Assessment arrangements are based on the candidate’s specific individual needs and reflect their way of producing work in class such as extra time, modified assessment formats, or the use of assistive technology.
The SQA does not require pupils to have a confirmed diagnosis of a disability for assessment arrangements to be put in place. However, there must be an identified need, and they rely on centres to submit requests and to consider the needs of individual learners. The SQA and centres have quality assurance processes in place to ensure that assessment arrangements are appropriate; guidance for centres setting out more detail is available on the SQA website.
Local authorities oversee the delivery of education and have a range statutory duties to provide for and to review the support they provide pupils with additional support needs.
Enquire is funded by the Scottish Government to help parents and carers to understand their child’s rights to additional support for learning and how to work in partnership with their school to make sure their child gets the support they need.
There are a range of dispute resolution mechanisms available under the Additional Support for Learning 2004 Act. These offer more formal ways to resolve concerns, if an agreement with the education authority cannot be met. Information about these mechanisms and what resolution they can offer, is available on the Enquire website.