FOI25/26 003 Numbers of Exam Exceptional Circumstances Requests

Please release the following under FOISA.

The total number of Exam Exceptional Circumstances requests received by the SQA, broken down by category
The total number of successful Exam Exceptional Circumstances requests received by the SQA, broken down by category

This information should be provided for 2023/24, 2022/23, 2021/22, 2018/19, and 2017/18.

Please note that I do not need or want a narrative explanation for the figures or the Exam Exceptional Circumstances system - please just release the numbers as requested and in the following format, and preferably in a spreadsheet:

.Following my acknowledgement of your freedom of information request I am contacting you to seek clarification of your request.

To help us identify and locate the information that you have asked for we need some further information from you.

To enable us to provide the correct information to you, could you please clarify a couple of things, please?

You have asked for the number of EEC requests received by SQA broken down by category. Can you please let us know if this should exclude requests that are cancelled by the submitting centre or SQA before being processed through the EEC service? If you want the cancelled request numbers included, would you like this information presented separately?

You also asked for the total number of successful EEC requests broken down by category. Regarding this, can you clarify what you mean by ‘successful’ requests? Does this mean requests where the estimated grade for the learner is achieved or bettered? Or is there another metric required

I think the best thing for the cancelled requests would be to show them in a separate column from the successful ones? So for example, if 100 were received, 63 successful, and 4 cancelled, that would be clear enough (and would confirm that 33 were unsuccessful). However, I would want to see the cancellations broken down by those that were cancelled by the centre and those that were cancelled by the SQA.

In terms of the definitions, I think a successful request would be any where the final grade/band awarded has been affected by the EEC application. That would, I think, capture the different scenarios that exist (eg people who miss a whole exam for a legit reason, or people who have something happen during the exam itself, or people whose general performance in the exam was affected by a bereavement) - does that sound right to you?

Also, in terms of the categories, I know the SQA published the headline categories for the EEC system, but if there are also sub-categories then those are the ones I'd want to see used for breakdowns. So for example, if Bereavement is a category and that's as detailed as it gets, then use that - but if there are categories of bereavement (eg close family, extended family, pets) I'd want that level of detail please.

The information requested is contained within the spreadsheet

FOI25/26 003 Information Sheet (11 KB)