Scottish Government

BACKGROUND NOTES

1. The information in this statistical publication notice is derived from the April 2008 school estate core facts collection of data on all publicly funded primary, secondary and special schools, and financial information from local authorities. Certain elements of the School Estates Core Facts were not collected this time while further development work on these is undertaken.

2. Data for grant aided schools and stand-alone nurseries were not collected in this survey.

3. Information from the survey is used to establish baselines, inform targets, inform spending decisions, support monitoring and evaluation of progress over time, and support assessments of value for money in the school estate.

Data quality and definitions

4. This is the fourth year that school estate data have been collected. They were previously collected in 2004 and 2007. The collection was piloted in December 2003, however as the 2003 data were incomplete and often of poor quality the results were not published.

5. Not all local authorities could answer all of the questions in the survey at this time.

6. Data on the total gross internal floor area ( GIA) and area within the perimeter ( AWP) of the school estate have been scaled up to take account of missing data. As the 2007 and 2008 AWP data are more complete than the 2004 data, less scaling was necessary and the resulting 2007 and 2008 totals are more reliable than those in 2004. A simple comparison of the 2004 data with the data for later years is therefore not valid.

7. A school is recorded as having community services if there is space within it exclusively dedicated to and managed by those providing community services, such as dental, medical or police or social work. This does not refer to use of school amenities such as sports or cultural facilities by community groups. The 2008 guidance clarified and restricted what should be included in this category, so a comparison of the data between 2007 and 2008 may not be valid.

8. PPP (Public Private Partnership) refers to schools that have been built or refurbished under a public/private partnership arrangement. This year we have collected information on those schools which were built or substantially refurbished under PPP in the last financial year only. The data collected on PPP builds in 2007 covered all schools that had been built or refurbished under PPP not just those that had been completed in the previous financial year.

9. Although local authorities are confident that there is consistency in condition ratings within their area, these results may not be consistent across authorities ( i.e. a school given a particular condition rating by one local authority might have been rated differently by another local authority, depending on the survey methodology).

10. To address this issue the way in which condition ratings are assigned has been improved since 2004. To make the ratings across local authorities more consistent new guidance on assigning condition - The Condition Core Fact (available from www.scotland.gov.uk/schoolestate) - was published in March 2007. It is expected that all local authorities will implement this guidance by the end of 2008. This may, in some cases, affect comparisons of condition data between years and between local authorities.

11. The condition of a school is based on the following criteria, as assessed by local authorities:

Condition A: Good - Performing well and operating efficiently.

Condition B: Satisfactory - Performing adequately but showing minor deterioration.

Condition C: Poor - Showing major defects and/or not operating adequately.

Condition D: Bad - Economic life expired and/or risk of failure.

12. Local authorities determine the formulae used to calculate capacity, in line with Scottish Government guidance (Circular No. 03/2004). They may therefore vary between local authorities and school types. The percentage of capacity used in each school was calculated using the number of pupils recorded at each school from the results of the September 2007 pupil census.

13. Local authorities and the Scottish Government are currently developing a template to assist schools in reporting suitability of school accommodation. This information will therefore be collected from 2009 onwards.

14. The information on utilities is incomplete. This is due to local authorities not returning complete data.

15. The following symbols are used in this publication:

- = nil or rounds to nil

# = not applicable

.. = not available

General

16. Figures contained in this publication are not National Statistics. However, the standard National Statistics release practices were followed. The published results are free from political interference.

17. This is the fourth year of a rather complicated collection and it is likely that there remain some differences in the way in which local authorities are reporting information. Local authorities were also unable to provide full data for several of the questions. Once the survey has bedded in and quality concerns have been addressed, the data will be considered for inclusion within the scope of National Statistics.

18. All tables are available on the Scottish Government website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00687

19. Public enquiries (non-media) about the information contained in this Publication Notice should be addressed to:

Venetia Haynes,
Pupil and School Statistics,

Telephone : 0131 244 0303
or e-mail : school.stats@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

20. Media enquiries about the information contained in this Publication Notice should be addressed to:

Allison Gilfillan
Telephone : 0131 244 2542

30 ^th September 2008