Measuring progress - Children and Young People

Latest Update: 13 July 2023

This indicator measures the percentage of children with a concern at their 27-30 month review (as a % of children reviewed). Find out more about this indicator.

In 2021-22, 17.9% of children were recorded as having a developmental concern at their 27-30 month review. This is a higher proportion than in 2020-21 (14.9%). The proportion of children with a developmental concern has increased since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, after a period of decreasing developmental concerns between 2013-14 (19.2%) and 2019-20 (14.3%).

Currently, this NPF indicator only tracks outcomes at the 27-30 month child health review. The annual Early Child Development publication from which these statistics are derived also reports on outcomes at 13-15 month and 4-5 year child health reviews. In 2021-22, 11.9% of children had a concern recorded at 13-15 months and 15.0% had a concern recorded at 4-5 years.

Data Breakdowns

This indicator can be broken down by age, gender, ethnicity and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation in the drop down menus below the charts. 

Breakdowns for this indicator are available by local authority, health board, language spoken, whether children are bi/multilingual and looked after children status.  These breakdowns can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder and are below. 

• In 2021-22, the local authority with the highest proportion of children with a developmental concern was West Dunbartonshire (26.1%), while the local authority with the lowest proportion of children with a developmental concern was Aberdeenshire (8.6%).
• In 2021-22, the health board with the highest proportion of children with a developmental concern was NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (23.0%), while the health board with the lowest proportion of children with a developmental concern was NHS Orkney (11.1%).
• In 2021-22, children living in households in which English was not the main language spoken in the household (19.1%) were more likely to have a developmental concern recorded than children for whom English was the main language spoken in the household (17.7%).
• The proportion of children with a developmental concern is also available broken down by whether or not the child is bi/ multilingual. In 2021-22, children who were bi/ multilingual (18.2%) were slightly more likely than children who were not bi/ multilingual (17.9%) to have a developmental concern recorded.
• In 2021-22, looked after children (37.6%) were more than twice as likely as non-looked after children (17.8%) to have a developmental concern recorded.

Important Information

Please note that this indicator was changed in 2021 to measure the proportion of children with a concern of all children reviewed as opposed to all children becoming eligible. Also, some children may not have been assessed across all developmental domains. NPF have changed the way this indicator is reported in order to help address data quality issues and align with the way Public Health Scotland report the figures.

This indicator measures the percentage of 4 to 12 year old children who have a “borderline” or “abnormal” score on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) section of the Scottish Health Survey (SHeS). Find out more about this indicator.

The proportion of children aged 4-12 in Scotland having an “abnormal” or “borderline” score on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was at 16% during 2017-2021 (excl. 2020). While this is the same as in 2016-19, it is a 1% point increase since the 2015-18 period and a 2% point increase since 2012-15.

Data Breakdowns

This indicator can be broken down by age, gender, disability, ethnicity and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and Urban/Rural classification. These are available in the drop down menus below the charts. 

Breakdowns are also available for the 5 dimensions used in the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, cross-tabulated against each of the above. In 2017-2021, the most common difficulties were recorded in the Hyperactivity dimension (21% of all children), followed by Conduct Disorder (20%), Peer Problems (19%) Emotional symptoms (18%), and Prosocial Behaviour (9%). These breakdowns can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder.

Percentage of young people who feel adults take their views into account in decisions that affect their lives. Find out more about this indicator.

58 per cent of young people agreed that were good at taking their views into account when taking decisions that affect them

Data breakdowns

This indicator can be broken down by age, gender, ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status and Urban/rural classification and can be found in the drop down menus below the charts. 

Breakdowns for this indicator are also available by School Year. These breakdowns can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder.

Latest update: 07 August 2024

This indicator measures the perinatal Mortality Rate per 1,000 births (stillbirths plus deaths in the first week of life). Find out more about this indicator.

Scotland’s perinatal mortality rate - the rate of stillbirths and deaths of babies in the first week of life- reduced from 5.7 per 1,000 births in 2021 to 5.3 per 1,000 births in 2022.  

Scotland’s perinatal mortality rate- the rate of stillbirths and deaths of babies in the first week of life – has reduced by around 18% in the past decade, from 6.5 per 1,000 births in 2012, to 5.3 per 1,000 births in 2022. The lowest rate recorded was in 2018 (5.1 per 1,000 births). 

Data Breakdowns

This indicator can be broken down by gender and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. These can be viewed as charts in the drop down menus below.

Breakdowns for this indicator are also available by local authority and health board. These breakdowns can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder and are below. 

• In 2022, the local authority with the lowest perinatal mortality rate was East Renfrewshire, with 1.3 perinatal deaths per 1,000 births. The local authority with the highest perinatal mortality rate was Clackmannanshire, with 8.9 perinatal deaths per 1,000 births. However, due to the small size of Clackmannanshire local authority, a small increase in the number of perinatal deaths can appear as a large increase in the perinatal mortality rate.
• In 2022, the NHS Board with the lowest perinatal mortality rate was NHS Ayrshire and Arran, with 2.1 perinatal deaths per 1,000 births. The NHS Board with the highest perinatal mortality rate was NHS Forth Valley, with 7.9 perinatal deaths per 1,000 births. 
• A 6-fold Urban/Rural breakdown for 2016-2022 is available on the National Performance Framework dataset on the Scottish Government Open Data Platform.

Latest update: 06 February 2024

Percentage of settings providing funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) achieving good or better across all four quality themes. Find out more about this indicator.

In 2022, the percentage of settings providing funded Early Learning and Childcare holding Care Inspectorate evaluation grades of good or better across all four key questions was 90.1%. This is an increase of 0.7 percentage points from the previous year.

Data breakdowns

This indicator can be broken down by SIMD, Urban/Rural, local authority and servic category. These breakdowns can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder.

• In 2022, the percentage of settings providing funded Early Learning and Childcare holding Care Inspectorate evaluation grades of good or better across all four key questions was 91.8% for SIMD quintile 1, 89.9% for quintile 2, 88.9% for quintile 3, 91.4% for quintile 4, and 88.3% for quintile 5.
• In 2022, the percentage of settings providing funded Early Learning and Childcare holding Care Inspectorate evaluation grades of good or better across all four key questions was 88.0% for large urban areas, 91.0% for other urban areas, 93.6% for accessible small towns, 85.3% for remote small towns, 92.4% for accessible rural, and 89.0% for remote rural.
• In 2022, the percentage of settings providing funded Early Learning and Childcare holding Care Inspectorate evaluation grades of good or better across all four key questions was 95.7% for children and family centres, 90.0% for nurseries and 86.7% for playgroups.
• In 2022, the percentage of settings providing funded Early Learning and Childcare holding Care Inspectorate evaluation grades of good or better across all four key questions ranged from 72.7% in Na h-Eileanan Siar to 97.3% in West Dunbartonshire.

Percentage of S2 and S4 pupils who report to have "three or more" close friends. Find out more about this indicator.

The percentage of S2 and S4 pupils reported having at least three close friends was 82 per cent in 2018. This was a slight increase from 2013 and 2015 (81 per cent), but lower than 2010 (85 per cent).

The percentage was slightly higher among S4 pupils (84 per cent) than S2 pupils (80 per cent).

Data Breakdowns

This indicator can be broken down by age, gender, disability and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. These can be viewed as charts in the drop down menus below.

Breakdowns for this indicator are available by school year, carer status and parent status. These breakdowns can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder and are below. 

• The percentage was slightly higher among those who were not carers (83 per cent) than carers (79 per cent);

Percentage of children in combined material deprivation and low income after housing costs (below 70% of UK median income). Find out more about this indicator.

Find out more on how poverty in Scotland is measured, and how material deprivation is defined.

The proportion of children in low income and material deprivation was 11% in 2019-22, similar to the previous periods. However, the latest two estimates cannot be directly compared to previous estimates. This is because the latest two periods cover a time when families were less able to undertake certain activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and not necessarily because they couldn't afford to. This changed how people responded to the material deprivation questions. More information is available in the poverty statistics report.

Data Breakdowns

Different age groups (0-4, 5-12, 13-19) show no consistent differences in how likely they are to be in combined low income and material deprivation.

Children in households with disabled household members have been consistently more likely to be in combined low income and material deprivation compared to those in households where no-one is disabled.

Data is available broken down by disability/no disability in household, lone parent/no lone parent in household, and age of child. These can be viewed on the Equality Evidence Finder.