We produce official statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics 3.0 (‘Code 3.0’ or ‘the code’).

Standard 8 of the Code states ‘Producers must put users at the centre of decision making about the statistics, listening and responding to feedback, and be transparent about statistical planning so that the public can have confidence that statistics are relevant and useful’.

Standard 8, Practice 5 of the Code states: ‘Publish your public involvement and engagement strategy. Be clear how you engage with users inside and outside of your organisation, as well as other stakeholders with an interest in the statistics such as intermediaries and community groups.’

People and organisations who use our statistics

A range of people and organisations use our official statistics, including Qualifications Scotland employees. External users include:

  • Scottish ministers
  • policy and special advisors
  • Scottish Parliament, such as the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (e.g. SPICe)
  • education and local authorities
  • interest groups
  • media commentators
  • academic researchers
  • charities
  • the public

How we engage with the people who use our statistics

We are accountable to our users and engage with them in many different ways, encouraging them to ask questions and making sure we answer them quickly.

User engagement surveys

We’ve carried out three user engagement surveys since we became an official statistics producer in 2019: in 2020; 2024; and 2026.

We send out our surveys using ScotStat mailing lists, engaging with a wide range of users, including people in education, business, the media and public bodies.

We sent each of our surveys to more than 800 email addresses registered as having an interest in children and/or education-related statistics. We’ve used the feedback to help us develop our statistical publications. From 2026, we’ll run user engagement surveys every year.

Team mailbox monitoring

We give our team mailbox address in every publication, and commit to answering any queries within ten working days. We categorise one-off and freedom of information (FOI) information requests, and look for changes in the frequency of requests for particular information that isn’t routinely captured in our official statistics and information releases. Sometimes, when the number of requests for particular information is sufficiently high, we may start including it in our publications, or create a new one.

Online feedback

People can contact us using the email address provided on our statistical webpages We also monitor our webpage for changes in people’s engagement with our routinely produced statistics and information, and we may make changes to publications as a result.

Feedback from Shiny

We used a Shiny application alongside our Progression publication in 2025. This meant we could get instant user feedback, which we then used to develop the second iteration of the Progression app in January 2026.

User groups

We attend various interest groups, such as the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES) and the Statistical Advisory Group for Education (SAGE), and this helps us get direct feedback from users.

Developing our user engagement approach

We use all the feedback we receive to inform decisions on our annual statistical work programme. If we’re not meeting our users’ requests, we make this clear in our user consultation response, including the reasons why.

We continue to explore tools to get more feedback on our main publications, working with our digital team to deploy them on our website.

As we move content over to the new Qualifications Scotland website, we’re working with our Digital Team to to make our new statistics webpages better.

We are investigating setting up an ‘expert user’ group to inform the future development of our statistics. This would allow Shiny application users or survey respondents to opt in to further user engagement.

In line with Code 3.0’s requirement for an ‘annual statistical work programme’, we use all the feedback we get on our publications to help make the most of our resources.

Compliance

The head of profession (our head of data and analytics) has the final decision on any action necessary to comply with these procedures.

Questions or comments?

We want this information to be as helpful as possible. Please email us at data.analytics@qualifications.gov.scot with questions or general comments.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code. You can also email us at data.analytics@qualifications.gov.scot with your comments on how we’re meeting these standards, or you can contact OSR by email at regulation@statistics.gov.uk, or through the OSR website.