ADR Scotland
Over the past year, ADR Scotland has delivered key infrastructure projects, made new datasets available, generated policy-relevant research insights, and strengthened engagement with both new and existing stakeholders, including members of the public.
Building on previous investments, we have enhanced the support we offer to researchers accessing data in several important ways. This year, collaboration across the ADR Scotland partnership, alongside investment in Research Data Scotland, has led to improvements in the metadata catalogue. We are streamlining and simplifying data access processes, aligning with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Information Commissioner's Office guidance to reduce administrative burdens while ensuring a secure, transparent, and trusted approach to data use.
Complementing this work, we have expanded our training offer for researchers. We run the Introduction to Administrative Data Research and Analysis (IADRA) course online twice a year, in addition to delivering courses on data quality and privacy-preserving record linkage for both Scottish and UK-wide audiences.
Driving forward data aquisition
This year ADR Scotland has also driven forward data acquisition across a range of areas from justice to education. A number of datasets and metadata were made available for secure research access including the Service Leavers Database – Scotland, Scottish Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
Research using ADR Scotland data continues to generate insights that are directly informing policy. Notable findings include links between some, but not all, measures of persistent child poverty and early youth offending. Another ongoing project is exploring migration patterns among nurses and midwives and their implications for the health and care workforce. Our publication on Growing Up in Kinship Care was featured in the joint ADR UK-NatCen UK-wide report, and researchers were invited to present their findings to the Scottish Government policy team to inform decision making.
Strengthening academic engagement and collaboration
ADR Scotland has maintained strong momentum in promoting engagement and collaboration across academia, the third sector, and government. Our Data with Impact series returned this year, with the most recent Spotlight on Adult Social Care event focusing on key issues, available data, and research opportunities. Insights from this event will help shape the Scottish Government’s upcoming social care research priorities. Similarly, poverty remains a high-priority area, with continued collaboration following a previous spotlight event. Additional engagement and workshops have brought together representatives from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Scottish Government, academic researchers, and third-sector organisations.
The Scottish Historic Population Platform project continues to advance methodological innovation in data linkage. The team has developed novel approaches, including exact matching of certificates that account for ambiguities, automated clustering-based methods to group birth siblings, and scalable probabilistic methods that address record uniqueness. All generated links are stored in a graph database, enabling efficient and flexible querying, verification, and extraction of complex research cohorts.
It has been an exciting year, with key developments including new data on Longitudinal Education Outcomes and veterans, as well as the publication of our report - and a child-friendly info-comic - highlighting impactful research on growing up in kinship care in Scotland. We continue to expand our training offer, while supporting early career researchers to regularly meet, share best practices, and discuss challenges. These latter activities are crucial to developing future capacity in administrative data research.
This has been a big year for the ADR Scotland partnership. We have worked closely together and continued to invest in Research Data Scotland to develop new tools and resources that enhance the reuse of government-collected data and deliver significant research outcomes. This work is providing a platform for researchers to access more data and generate new insights, enriching our evidence base, informing policy, and ultimately improving public services.
Policing mental health distress
One of our emerging projects on mental health involves ADR Scotland researchers working in partnership with Police Scotland and Public Health Scotland on a project titled Policing Mental Health Distress.
This research focuses on individuals who have had contact with the police as a result of mental health distress. It will use a novel dataset from the Vulnerable Person's Database (held by Police Scotland), linked to health records, to build a clearer picture of people’s care journeys before and after police contact. Researchers have engaged with the Scotland Talks Data public panel, as well as a group of individuals with lived experience of mental ill health, contacted through Vox Scotland.
The project was featured at a research showcase event held by UKRI at Westminster and attended by Members of Parliament and the House of Lords. It also received positive feedback following a presentation at the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) conference. A literature review on the need for this type of linked data research is due to be published in Scottish Affairs this winter.
The findings will help inform Police Scotland’s Mental Health Reference Group and contribute to the Scottish Government’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, supporting efforts to redesign urgent care services, strengthen partnership working, and increase upstream prevention of mental ill health.
Understanding educational exclusions and absences
In 2024–2025, around 22% of children in Scotland are expected to be living in relative poverty. While poverty is known to negatively impact adult mental health, there is growing awareness of its link to school absenteeism. This has motivated our involvement in a project that investigates the factors influencing school exclusions and absences, examining variations across schools and local authorities in Scotland.
Using linked administrative data from the Scottish Government, Public Health Scotland, and the census, the research explores longitudinal patterns of absence, exclusion, and attainment in relation to a range of adverse circumstances.
A Data Insight publication on understanding exclusions in Scottish secondary schools showed that there were significant variations across schools and local authorities. It also highlighted that pupils who had been excluded at primary school were at a greater risk of exclusion in secondary school. At the International Population Data Linkage Network Conference 2024, researchers presented evidence that the relationship between attainment, attendance and exclusion is complex and non-linear. While attendance is necessary for high attainment, it is not sufficient on its own. Low attainment is further impacted by overlapping challenges such as low household income, children’s mental health needs, long-term parental health conditions, and experience of care.
Our team also examined predictors of absenteeism in Scottish secondary schools. Findings show a strong correlation between low income and persistent absence (defined as missing 10% or more of the academic year). Pupils eligible for free school meals at any point were twice as likely to be persistently absent as their peers. The analysis also revealed distinctions between authorised and unauthorised absences, with patterns differing across types of additional support needs. Children with a history of local authority care were at particularly high risk of unauthorised absences.
These findings underscore the importance of recognising and addressing structural disadvantage in order to reduce school absenteeism and the risk of exclusion. Upcoming publications will explore the relationship between additional support needs and school non-participation to help improve the support schools and local authorities provide.
Investigating social circumstances of veterans
Our project on how service in the UK Armed Forces influences social mobility and health is progressing well. It uses the ONS Longitudinal Study, spanning the England and Wales censuses from 1971 to 2021, to analyse veterans’ demographics, occupations, and health in 2021. By comparing childhood socioeconomic status with adult outcomes, and using matched sampling, the study evaluates differences between veterans and non-veterans.
The project also assesses the accuracy of the new census question on veteran status, using linked socioeconomic and health data. Findings will be presented at the ADR UK Conference in autumn 2025. The results will inform improvements to the census question on service-leaver status and provide a robust, longitudinal view of veterans’ social and health outcomes to support evidence-based policymaking.
We look forward to continuing this work with the Service Leavers Database – Scotland dataset to deepen our understanding of the social circumstances of veterans, guided by input from our expert advisory group.
