FOI Request - Violent Incidents in Schools
Request 101003854077
Scope and timeframe
Please provide recorded information for school settings (local authority schools and specialist bases/units) for academic years 2015/16 to 2024/25 (year-to-date), and monthly from 1 August 2023 to the most recent complete month where requested.
A. Counts of recorded violent incidents (annual, by phase)
For each academic year, provide totals for Primary, Secondary, and Special (or your equivalent phases):
1. Total recorded violent incidents.
2. Of these, incidents where the victim was staff; victim was pupil.
3. Incidents resulting in injury (first aid only / medical treatment / lost time).
4. Incidents reported to Police Scotland (if recorded).
5. Incidents recorded as RIDDOR reportable (if recorded).
B. Monthly time-series (recent, service-level)
For Aug 2023 – latest month, provide monthly totals of:
1. Total recorded violent incidents.
2. Incidents against staff; incidents against pupils.
3. Incidents resulting in injury (as per A3).
C. Incident categories and coding
1. The incident categories/codes you use for violent incidents (e.g., physical assault, threat/abuse, weapon possession/use, spitting/biting, sexual assault/harassment, damage to property linked to violence, other), with definitions.
2. Where available, annual totals by incident category (service-level).
D. Disposals/outcomes (service-level)
Annual totals of violent incidents that resulted in:
1. Temporary exclusion; permanent exclusion (if applicable).
2. Risk assessment / safety plan update or creation (count of incidents leading to such action, if recorded).
(Policy-level counts only—no case narratives.)
E. Denominators for rates
For each academic year, provide:
1. Total pupil roll by phase (Primary/Secondary/Special).
2. School-day count or sessions possible used for attendance/statistics (if you routinely use a denominator for incident rates).
(If you already calculate an incident rate per 1,000 pupils or similar, please include your rate and method.)
F. Policies, systems, and management information
1. Current policy/procedure for recording, categorising and escalating violent incidents in schools (and any guidance issued to schools).
2. The system(s) used (e.g., SEEMiS modules, H&S incident system), with the fields available for extraction (a data dictionary or field list is fine).
3. Any management/committee reports since 1 August 2023 summarising trends in school violent incidents.
Format
Please supply data in a machine-readable format (CSV or XLSX). For datasets, fields such as academic_year, month, phase, incident_category, victim_type (staff/pupil), injury_severity, police_reported (Y/N), riddor (Y/N), total_incidents are ideal.
Definitions / disclosure control
• I seek aggregate, anonymised figures only; no personal data. Please apply standard disclosure control (e.g., suppress values <5) where needed.
• If your definition of “violent incident” differs from the above, please provide your definition and map your categories where possible.
Advice & assistance / cost
If this may exceed the section 12 cost limit, please advise under section 15 how to refine—e.g., provide service-level totals only, shorter timeframe, or omit category/outcome splits not routinely reported.
Published information
If any information is already published (section 25), please provide the direct URL and the precise document/table location.
Information not held / exemptions
If any part is not held (section 17), please say so explicitly. If information is withheld, please provide a schedule of items withheld, the exemption/exception relied upon, and the public-interest test (where applicable).