Innovative project increases the visibility of disabled children in Scotland’s statistics
A pioneering project led by CELCIS, in partnership with Scotland’s National Joint Investigative Interviewing Project Team, has developed a new and more effective way of identifying and recording disability in children across Scotland.
Published today (16 December), the report of the project sets out how new disability indicators, created and tested with seven local Joint Investigative Interview Partnerships (a key part of Scotland’s child protection process), will support care and protection services to better understand and meet children’s developmental and complex needs.
The project built on earlier work carried out by CELCIS which explored the different ways in which the disabilities of children are recorded in Scotland’s statistical collections. The findings of that work identified an apparent under-recording of disability among children in need of care and protection, and the requirement for greater consistency in how disability and additional support needs are collected across Scotland.
The seven partnerships that collectively developed and tested the new approach were Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow, Highland, Lanarkshire, North Strathclyde and Eilean Siar. The National Joint Investigative Interviewing Project Team (COSLA, Social Work Scotland and Police Scotland) also participated. The Scottish Government, The Alliance and the Fraser of Allander Institute also provided some feedback throughout.
Previously, all partnerships had used a single question: ‘Disability: yes; no; chose not to disclose; unknown’. CELCIS sought to understand whether a more detailed and rights-based approach, aligned with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the UK Equality Act 2010, could improve national understanding of the number of disabled children in Scotland and the types of support they require.
Working with the partners, CELCIS developed a set of test indicators and accompanying practitioner guidance. These included options for recording multiple conditions where relevant and a ‘present but without medical diagnosis’ category, recognising lengthy waits for assessments and the need to prevent incomplete or misleading data.
Over four quarters (2024–2025), the seven partnerships collected and shared data for 1,075 children. The analysis shows that:
- 42.7% of children interviewed in a Joint Investigative Interview during this period were recorded as having one or more conditions captured by the test indicators. By comparison, 6.6% of children interviewed in a Joint Investigative Interview in 2023–2024, using the previous, single-question approach, were recorded as disabled.
- By condition, the most commonly recorded were a social interaction condition (for example, autism or ADHD); a mental health condition; and a learning difficulty.
Partners reported that the new indicators led to:
- Improved identification of children’s developmental and complex needs, supporting practitioners to plan interviews more effectively
- Better engagement of children during interviews due to more considered, individualised planning
- Greater visibility of disability within other parts of the child protection process, including Inter-agency Referral Discussions (IRDs) in Scotland.
Responding to interest in this work from Public Health Scotland, CELCIS has since worked with Public Health Scotland to further refine the indicators.
Dr Alexander McTier, Evidence and Evaluation Specialist at CELCIS and project lead, said:
“For too long, disabled children have only been partially visible within many of Scotland’s national statistics. By working closely with national and local partners, we’ve developed a new approach that supports practitioners to better recognise and record children’s developmental and complex needs, and ultimately ensure each child’s needs can be more fully understood and appropriately supported.”
The revised indicators are now being used by all Joint Investigative Interview partnerships across Scotland and have also been introduced into the Universal Health Visitor Pathway Assessments collection from October 2025.
For further information about the indicators, their development or use, email celcis@strath.ac.uk