§ Mr. GorrieTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many learning support teachers expressed as a full-time equivalent have been provided by each education authority in the current year; and how many were provided over the previous four years by them or their predecessor authority. [9613]
§ Mr. WilsonThe information requested is not held centrally on a comparable basis for each education authority in Scotland at the present time. Information is collected annually as part of the school census about the provision of learning support. An analysis of this data shows that there has been a substantial variation recently from year to year and among education authorities. We strongly suspect that some of this variation is due to differences in the patterns of provision and interpretation of definitions of learning support, rather than differences in the total amount of learning support being provided in each authority. The methods used to collect this information are currently being improved. My Department will be considering with colleagues in education authorities, schools and HM inspectorate how to resolve this issue and collect and publish the information on a more comparable basis.