Care experience young people in Highland: FOI release

Information requested

1. How many Care Experienced Young People in Highland have committed suicide since 2005?

2. How many CEYP [(care experienced young people)] in Highland have died since 2005?

3. How many girls in Highland’s care homes became pregnant since 2005?

4. What percentage of Highland’s care experienced children remain in school until 16?

4A. What percentage of Highland’s care experienced children remain in school until Third Year (S3)?

4B. What percentage of Highland’s care experienced children remain in school until Fourth Year (S4)?

4C. What percentage of Highland’s care experienced children remain in school until Fifth Year (S5)?

5. How many children were conceived in relationships where the mother and father were resident in the same care home in Highland, in the past 15 years?

6. How many care experienced children have progressed to beyond level 5 education in Highland?

7. How many [of] Highland’s CEYP have gone to University?

8. How many have gone to University outside of the Highlands?

Note: square brackets have been used by the case handler to add additional information to the questions to provide clarity as to the meaning of acronyms used in the original request.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

Regarding questions 1 and 2, the Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have asked for and the following information will provide context and background to explain how we receive the information relevant to these questions:

The statutory duty on local authorities to notify Scottish Ministers of deaths for those young people in receipt of continuing care or aftercare only began when the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 came into force in 2015. Part 10 and 11 of this Act introduced new provisions on aftercare and continuing care respectively.

It is important to note that the cause of death is often not confirmed when Scottish Ministers are notified of a death of an individual whom is in receipt of continuing care or aftercare services. This lack of information can be due to ongoing investigations that are continuing at the time of notification (for example, post-mortem or police investigation). There is no statutory requirement for Scottish Ministers to be updated on cause of death after being notified of the death in the first instance.

1. Our records suggest that Scottish Ministers have been notified of fewer than five cases of deaths by suicide of care experienced young persons in Highland Council since 2015 and, as explained above, we have no data preceding 2015 that is relevant to the question.

We have withheld the precise number of deaths because where a request asks for the number of individuals and that number is so small that release of the information could lead to the identification of the individuals, we customarily present a number range. This information being exempt under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA. Disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

While the details of deceased persons are not subject to GDPR, their identification in these circumstance may harm the interests and expectation of privacy of their surviving, bereaved families.

2. Our records indicate that Scottish Ministers have been notified of nine deaths of care experienced young people in Highland Council since 2015. As explained above, we have no data preceding 2015 that is relevant to the question. You may wish to contact the Care Inspectorate to request information to answer your question, whose contact details are: Care Inspectorate, Compass House, 11 Riverside Drive, Dundee, DD1 4NY or enquiries@careinspectorate.gov.scot

3. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

4. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

In a clarification request we issued to you on 10 December 2022, we informed you that we report on stage of leaving school (e.g. S4, S5, S6) and do not report the age of leaving school, so we are unable to provide the information you requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

In your response to our clarification request on 10 December 2022, you agreed to rephrase your questions. You provided rephrased questions as laid out in questions 4A-4C above. The information you requested is provided below.

Of all care experienced school leavers in Highland in 2019/20:
1. None left school in Third Year (S3)
2. 48.6% left school in Fourth Year (S4)
3. 37.8% left school in Fifth Year (S5)
4. 13.5% left school in Sixth Year (S5).

In your response to our clarification request, on 10 December 2022 you requested ‘statistics of Care Experienced Young People leaving Secondary Education in Highland at the age of/or around 16’. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. As previously stated, we are unable to provide this information as we do not report on age of leaving school.

5. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. You may wish to contact the Care Inspectorate to request information to answer your question through the contact details provided above.

6. 8% of all school leavers looked after in Highland in 2019/20 progressed beyond SCQF level 5.

7/8. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Although we cannot answer questions 7 and 8 exactly, we have been able to calculate that in 2019-20, the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) student data suggests that there were around 55 students identified as having care experience enrolled at a Higher Education Institution in Scotland who were domiciled in Highland Council area prior to study. Around 30 of this number were enrolled at the University of Highlands and Islands (UHI). This data is based on the following HESA variable: Student 2019/20 - Care leaver / Looked after status | HESA

Please note that UHI has campuses across Highland Council, the Islands and other local authorities including Perth & Kinross, Argyll & Bute and Moray. These numbers include all levels and years of study captured through the HESA return. Not all care experienced students will be captured by the HESA data and other care experienced students may secure Higher or Further Education places at Scotland colleges. Further Education delivered at UHI campuses is not captured through the HESA return. Further Care Experienced Statistics are published by the Scottish Funding Council: Report on Widening Access 2019-20 (sfc.ac.uk)

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