Background to the statistics

1.1 This assessment considered three sets of statistics produced by NHS Education Scotland (NES): NHSScotland Workforce, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Workforce and Psychology Services Workforce. Each set of statistics is produced using different methods due to the data collection systems employed.

1.2 Each publication formerly had annual bulletins with regular quarterly updates containing an updated subset of the annual information. However, following recent stakeholder feedback about the CAMHS and psychology workforce data, NES decided to stop publishing an annual report from June 2025. It now publishes quarterly updates in the form of data tables and dashboards. For the purposes of this report, we refer to the three sets as ‘workforce statistics’ unless distinguished separately.

1.3 NHS workforce statistics were originally designated as ‘National Statistics’ and produced by the Information Services Division (now called Public Health Scotland). In April 2019, NES was added to The Official Statistics (Scotland) Amendment Order 2019 and took over the production of workforce statistics. As a relatively small producer of official statistics, NES is supported by Public Health Scotland’s Head of Profession for Statistics and its statistical governance team. Following the change in producer organisation and because NES was a new official statistics producer, we agreed to temporarily suspend the accreditation of the statistics.

1.4 In 2022, NES, supported by PHS, asked us to assess the statistics for reaccreditation. Our assessment team’s early investigations uncovered some issues with governance that would take time to address. NES had been quite reliant on the PHS Head of Profession for Statistics and statistics governance team, and it was important that it took more responsibility for statistics leadership internally. We also noted ongoing development work with data supplier. As a result, the assessment was paused. In 2024, PHS requested that we resume the assessment, citing substantial progress in these areas.