Question reference: S6W-00088
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
- Date lodged: 18 May 2021
-
Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 1 June 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S5W-28271 and S5W-35532 by John Swinney on 20 April 2020 and 4 March 2021 respectively, whether it will provide the information for 2020 regarding the number of additional support for learning (a) teachers and (b) classroom assistants there were in each local authority.
Answer
(a)Additional Support for Learning Teachers
Statistics on the full time equivalent number of additional support for learning teachers by local authority from the 2020 staff census are published in Table 6.5 of the 2020 Teacher Census Supplementary statistics, available on the Scottish Government website here https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/
(b) Pupil Support Assistants - Classroom Assistants, Additional Support Needs Auxiliaries or Care Assistants
The use of the term 'classroom assistant' varies between local authorities and is sometimes used interchangeably with 'additional support needs auxiliary or care assistant'. Therefore these two categories of school support staff are combined and reported as 'pupil support assistants' in the published statistics on school support staff.
Data on school support staff was collected in the form of hours per week rather than Full Time Equivalent in 2020. This is because different local authorities have different definitions of ‘full time hours’, therefore Full Time Equivalent comparisons between local authorities were not valid. Statistics on the number of hours per week of pupil support assistants by local authority from the 2020 staff census are published in Table 1.1 of the 2020 School Support Staff statistics, available on the Scottish Government website here https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-support-staff-statistics/ . Calculations of Full Time Equivalent numbers of support staff are published in table 2.1 allowing a comparison to be made with 2018 and 2019 data at a national level.