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CHAPTER 9: THE FUTURE FOR SCOTXED
9.1 INTEGRATION WITHIN THE EDUCATION SECTOR
Local authority staff, stakeholders and, to a slightly lesser extent, schools, perceived ScotXed as having an important role in the provision of data to schools, local authorities, other stakeholder organisations and the Scottish Executive. For most, it was seen primarily as a means of obtaining or providing statistical data, rather than having a strategic role in the development of education in Scotland. The small number of respondents allocating a more strategic role to ScotXed, in terms of policy making, were stakeholders who themselves were involved in policy development. Even then, their view tended to be that ScotXed responded to requests for data to feed into policy changes, rather than being instrumental in the development of policy changes. While the data obtained was seen to be important, and ScotXed was credited by many as having improved the quality of statistical data, many respondents, particularly those based in schools, did not perceive ScotXed as having a role within educational initiatives such as A Curriculum for Excellence, Assessment is for Learning and so on.
There was some expectation that ScotXed will be available via GLOW once this is up and running; but some were reserving judgement about GLOW's contribution until it is in place, and others were sceptical about whether GLOW will get the IT support and training resource it needs to work effectively.
Some respondents, mainly those in local authorities or involved in a ScotXed Task Group, were aware of the work being done on development of the School to School System and welcomed this. The broad aims of the School to School Transfer System (the 'Transfer System') are:
- to ensure that any pupil under school leaving age leaving a Scottish school enrols at another school, and
- to enable the electronic transfer of pupil details between schools where such a facility is not currently available.
It is intended that this will both improve the safety of Scottish pupils and reduce the administrative burden on schools when a pupil whose details could only previously be passed in paper form arrives at a school. 1
9.2 INTERCONNECTIVITY
Given the increased importance of the provision of children's services across health, education, social work and so on, some respondents noted the need for ScotXed to interconnect with other data sources. Initiatives such as GIRFEC (Getting it Right for Every Child) serve to reinforce the importance of interconnectivity across and between different data sources.
There was an awareness of the need for interconnectivity between broader children's services by most respondents and enthusiasm and a will to tackle the issues among the majority. However, most people saw this as a medium to long term issue and ethical and data protection issues were mentioned by some, as well as perhaps cultural issues in data sharing to be overcome. There were, however, some examples from the qualitative fieldwork of health, education and social work services working together to share data at local authority level.
Despite agreement about the need for interconnectivity, there was a degree of scepticism as to how likely this is, particularly in the short term and this was attributed to a number of key issues:
- First, many other children's services are still developing data sources and at this point in time, it was felt that most do not currently have the capacity to interconnect;
- Second, data sources have developed in an ad hoc way utilising a range of different MIS and are not necessarily interconnectable;
- Third, funds will be required to develop data sources that can interrelate. Indeed, one local authority respondent noted that interconnectivity was an issue they had been examining recently but that there was little hope at this point in time in being able to link 8 different data sources together;
- Fourth, there were some issues over data protection and what information can be shared between different parties;
- Fifth, some senior educators believed that the various organisations involved have much work yet to do vis a vis developing shared working models/assumptions, ethics, language and processes before real connectivity can be achieved;
- Finally, there were concerns that local authorities will continue to develop their own data sources which could serve to heighten confusion at a national level.
Most respondents assumed that interconnectivity across a range of services including education, health, social work, the police and so on would be a medium to long term aim rather than something that is achievable in the short term. One local authority respondent commented,
"There is a working group in [local authority] that deals with the technical possibility of sharing data between different management information systems. And it looks like it is a big job but it's not infeasible with a lot of investment and with the central data storing that is already in existence. It is possible but we need the legal feasibility of sharing information."
A stakeholder noted,
"There is a big policy drive on towards integrated services and integrated community schools and joining up services in the interests of children and we would be broadly supportive of that principle."
A secondary headteacher, while supportive of the concept of interconnectivity, commented,
"I can't see how you can create a common management information system across education and social work when you have quite distinctive professional ethics."
Positively, some of our local authority and stakeholder respondents held ScotXed up as an example of a high quality system of data capture which should be utilised across other children's services. In the words of one stakeholder,
"My view would be that as we are moving more and more to uniform systems in dealing with the different agencies involved in the community of a school, it would be useful if there was a standard model and it would seem to me that the ScotXed model offers a very reasonable way forward."
9.3 SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS / CHANGES TO SCOTXED
9.3.1 Improvements to ScotXed and the electronic data exchange process
When respondents were asked to say what improvements they felt could be made to ScotXed and the electronic data exchange process, a wide range of comments was made, again echoing many of the themes already noted. These themes included a need for more training and more communication (for example, roadshows or forums). However, a large proportion of headteachers (75%) and admin / support staff (76%) were unable to make any specific suggestions for improvements and any individual suggestions for improvements were cited by 6% or less respondents.
When asked what could be done to improve the quality of available data at a school level, locally and nationally, a range of suggestions were made, each by small proportions of respondents. These included simplification of data or making the data more user friendly, changes to training / guidance available, provision of more support or resources and so on.
From the qualitative work a number of suggestions were made as to ways in which improvements could be made to ScotXed and these are outlined below.
There were some suggestions that rather than simply being a mechanism for data capture and provision, the ScotXed Unit should adopt an advisory role. Examples provided were in helping schools understand how they can manipulate their data to achieve maximum usage; helping to define areas where support is needed and working more closely with local authorities on this; or using the data to help define areas with relatively high numbers of young people not in education, employment or training and introduce initiatives to prevent increased numbers of individuals not in education, employment or training. However, there were some arguments that this would work directly against the devolvement of decision making at a local level and the data suggest there could be a degree of resistance from local authority staff to such a move. Any changes made to the role of the ScotXed Unit would have to be made in conjunction and agreement with local authorities in order to prevent antagonism. There were also one or two suggestions that the ScotXed Unit should demonstrate how ScotXed indicators can be used, for example, to help implement National Priorities and other policy decisions.
Most of our qualitative primary headteachers requested a mechanism (similar to STACs) aimed specifically at primary schools that would enable them to obtain data relating to attainment ("why can't they bring back 5-14 for primary schools?"). This would give primary schools a reason to be more involved in ScotXed. However, because of a lack of ready data via ScotXed, some local authorities and schools have already created their own means of measuring and benchmarking 5-14 attainment because this is not available elsewhere. While there is a National Assessment Bank that includes tests that teachers can use, this was not perceived to be a particularly credible source of data by some respondents. Primary reasons given for this lack of credibility related to the perceived poor quality of the 5-14 National Assessments.
There were some queries raised regarding the inflexibility of ScotXed and its outputs. For example, one stakeholder noted that pupils taking exams early in S3 (rather than S4) 2 do not show up in the STACs data and reduce the figures for the number of pupils who have passed exams, thus deflating performance of a school. Another stakeholder noted that pupils are lost if they attend college and school as ScotXed data are based on one institution only, although this will be rectified in STACs 2007.
One local authority respondent noted that there may well be instances where local authorities at their discretion will have a different slant on some policy issues from the Scottish Executive.
"One point in instance is the reason for absence or the reason why children are late for school. My authority will always encourage children to come to school regardless of how late they are, so they will record lateness differently from the Scottish Executive guidelines. So, there are issues like that where things need to be specific to an authority's approach and a school's approach."
Some respondents noted that the presentation of types of certain data collection may need to be changed to be useful to schools. One example cited was that of exclusions in Scotland and the same respondent noted that headteachers do not really need or want to know the total exclusions for Scotland but that local or their own school figures on a month by month basis are more important. Most respondents in schools were not aware of any processes by which they could feed back their views or requirements on the usefulness of specific outputs. For example,
"…Where there's clearly a gap is… attendance categories, I'm sorry…this ( ScotXed ) is nonsense. They're either in school, or they're out of school. That's the only thing I'm interested in and don't even start with the holidays."
Secondary Headteacher
Given the key role played by local authority staff as the conduit between ScotXed and schools, it is perhaps not surprising that some respondents - primarily those in schools but also a small number of local authority staff - noted a need to raise the profile of ScotXed, the ScotXed Unit and the ScotXed Partnership. For school staff, the most effective way of managing this and reaching school users was perceived to be through direct contact, rather than simply via local authorities, although as already noted, this may not be welcomed by all local authority staff. From some local authority staff, there were suggestions for meetings and roadshows to be held jointly by members of the ScotXed Unit and the local authority.
In line with this, there were further calls for more training, guidance and support to users and some suggestions that this should be delivered jointly by the ScotXed Unit and local authority staff. This would help to raise the profile of ScotXed in general and forge good working relationships between all elements of the Partnership.
Finally, there were some requests to make the website and its outputs more user friendly and relevant to users. There were some requests for guidance providing examples to be produced for all end users and showing a range of ways in which ScotXed outputs can be utilised. There are in fact some training guides available on the website and in STACs as well as web help, although many respondents appeared to be unaware of this.
In summary:
- The primary role of ScotXed is perceived to be the provision of data, with little emphasis on the strategic role it plays;
- ScotXed is perceived by some to lack salience with other educational initiatives because of its emphasis on statistical data;
- There is concern over how different data sources from education, health, social work and so on can be interconnected, particularly in the short term;
- A range of potential improvements were suggested by respondents including:
- More training, guidance and resources;
- ScotXed taking on more of a direct advisory role, although there will be a need to agree this with local authority staff and stakeholders;
- Changes to the data that can be produced within ScotXed such as a capacity to record information on peripatetic teaching staff;
- Provision of a STACs equivalent for primary schools;
- A need to ensure that available data are useful to schools;
- Raising the profile of ScotXed, the ScotXed Unit and the ScotXed Partnership.
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