Uses of the data

Collecting data once for many purposes provides evidence for monitoring and improvement at all levels using the same data. Data collected at pupil level means local authorities can produce and share school level results with their schools in a way that does not identify individual pupils; local authorities have information to inform and evidence their improvement activity; information is available at Community Planning Partnerships and Health Boards to inform and evidence their activity; and information is available at national level to inform government policy development, monitoring and reporting.

The examples for use of the data below are illustrative of the wide use of the data at all levels.

Schools have their school level results for a wide range of school level activity, for example:

• Help schools identify their key health and wellbeing needs
• Evidencing a health and wellbeing focus in school improvement plans
• Curriculum planning/review
• Facilitate and support school-led initiatives to promote young people’s health such as RespectMe, Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood Education in Schools, Wellbeing hubs, Active Schools
• Use pupil voice to support improvements in health and wellbeing

• Renewed promotion of, and development of, new resources for use in schools – for example RespectMe, Positive Mental Wellbeing and Life Satisfaction programmes, sexual health (access to information and contraception), Nutrition programmes, Physical education, physical activity and sport (PEPAS), Wellbeing hubs, RICS sleep resource
• to support resource requests

Local authorities use their data to evidence a range of activity, for example:

• Link in with various projects/programmes to provide contextualising data and inform planning, such as:
• The Promise (evaluation)
• With Public Health Scotland to provide evidence for improvement and prioritisation
• Linked to PEF funded interventions
• Used in self-evaluation documentation during school inspections
• Creating local authority level wellbeing contexts to identify priorities
• Local authority delivered professional learning
• Used in curriculum development (for example Substance and Alcohol Awareness Programme and current development of Mental Health programme) for use by schools
• Fill existing data gaps – for example EBSA (emotional based school avoidance) to understand wellbeing profile of low attenders
• A key tool in the setting of local stretch aims
• Childrens Services Planning
• Provide a strategic approach to reactive situations from a local authority perspective
• Use pupil voice to support improvements in health and wellbeing

Scottish Government use the data for:

• Evidencing improvement - reporting within the National Performance Framework, National Improvement Framework, Children and Young People’s Outcomes framework and PHS Children and Young People mental health indicator set. National and local authority analysis also provides context for local authority data use.
• Evidence base for policy development and monitoring, for example Vaping - understanding prevalence and trends among adults and children.

Scottish Government made the data available to external researchers through Administrative Data Research Scotland for statistics and research purposes. Researchers can apply for access to the HWB Census data via the data access process.

Post-Census Actions: While Scottish Government consider this to be a valuable dataset, and having researchers examine the drivers behind some of the high-level results through data linkage, it must give due consideration to the strong opinions that have been expressed through the media. 

 In February 2025, Scottish Government instructed delivery partners to remove availability of the metadata and data catalogue entries for researchers to request access to this specific dataset, until they had the opportunity to consider the concerns raised.