Chamber and committees

The responsibility for these matters rests with local authorities in their role as employers of teachers. You may wish to contact the relevant local authority. You may also wish to contact the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), the independent regulator of teachers in Scotland.

The responsibility for these matters rests with local authorities in their role as employers of teachers. You may wish to contact the relevant local authority. You may also wish to contact the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), the independent regulator of teachers in Scotland.

Weapons should never be in our schools and violence towards pupils or staff is unacceptable.

The Scottish Government’s national guidance on preventing and managing exclusion provides clear advice for schools on the response to incidents involving weapons. Police Scotland are responsible for responding to crime in Scotland, wherever committed.

The responsibility for these matters rests with local authorities in their role as employers of teachers. You may wish to contact the relevant local authority. You may also wish to contact the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), the independent regulator of teachers in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has provided record funding to local authorities for 2026–27. It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on antisocial behaviour, on the basis of local needs and priorities.

The Scottish Government complements this with specific national community safety interventions, for example, record funding for Phase 7 of CashBack for Communities, which supports diversionary activities for young people across Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on complaints recorded by Police Scotland.

The number of complaints recorded by local authorities concerning antisocial behaviour is also not held by the Scottish Government.

Under section 1 of the Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004 local authorities and Police Scotland are under a legal duty to maintain a strategy to tackle antisocial behaviour in their area. This enables a partnership approach that can take account of emerging trends and comparators.

The Scottish Government commissioned an Independent Working Group on Antisocial Behaviour which discussed this topic. Its report is available on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/report-independent-working-group-antisocial-behaviour/pages/23/. The Group noted that attention must be focused on addressing the broader societal factors that contribute to antisocial behaviour across all age groups, such as poverty.

There is a known relationship between persistent non-attendance, exclusion and anti-social behaviour. That is why the Scottish Government is clear that good school attendance is vital for children and young people. Schools and local authorities must do all they can to ensure that children and young people are included, engaged and involved in their learning.

The national guidance on school attendance was updated in March and reaffirms the importance of engaging and supporting children, young people and their families to secure regular school attendance, and is clear that education authority attendance procedures must be underpinned by robust safeguarding and child protection procedures.

Our national guidance also recognises the importance of strong, trusting relationships between staff and children and young people, along with collaboration with local police and youth services, as appropriate, in reducing some forms of absence and helping to prevent children and young people from being at risk.

The Scottish Government’s assessment of changes in classroom behaviour since 2020 is primarily informed by the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR), which provides robust, nationally representative evidence on behaviour in Scottish schools.

BISSR is externally commissioned research and has been undertaken in five waves to date: 2006, 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2023. This programme of research provides the Scottish Government with a robust evidence base to understand changes in pupil behaviour and to inform the development of policy and practice.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on school exclusions due to weapon possession.

Statistics on the number of exclusions by the reason for exclusion are published in School exclusion statistics - gov.scot.