Adult Support and Protection (ASP) National Minimum Dataset, 2024-25

Future plans

This publication of data from the Adult Support and Protection (ASP) National Mininum Dataset 2024-25 was first published on the Scottish Government website at 09.30am on 9 September 2025.

Iriss and the Scottish Government will continue to work with Adult Protection Committees, local authorities and other Adult Support and Protection (ASP) stakeholders to further strengthen the ASP National Minimum Dataset (NMDS). This will include supporting ASP partnerships to consistently gather and report on the existing indicators and working with them to improve the national minimum dataset template and reporting processes for financial year 2025-26.

The Scottish Government intends to publish data from the ASP NMDS for financial year 2025-26, and for each of the following financial years.

We will work with key ASP stakeholders to decide when the data is consistent and robust enough to allow for meaningful comparison between local authorities. We will publish the data at local authority level when this point is reached.

We also intend to publish data on the remaining NMDS indicators once we are confident the data is of good enough quality. For a full list of the indicators included in the NMDS, and whether data from them is published in this report, please see Annex 1 of the accompanying technical report.

As noted in the Introduction, some differences exist in how local authorities implement the ASP Act and the associated ASP Code of Practice. This variation in ASP practice across the local authorities impacts the comparability of the data reported for some indicators in the ASP NMDS. The National ASP Implementation Group sub-group on ‘Inquiries, Investigations and the Role of the Council Officer,’ in collaboration with the Scottish Government and the National ASP Coordinator, is working to identify and share best practice and robust quality assurance approaches with respect to a number of ASP processes. This work will positively influence subsequent ASP NMDS collections and publications through improving robustness and comparability.

In addition, the following specific actions are being taken in relation to the data collected through the ASP NMDS in financial year 2025-26.

Age and gender

For the 2025-26 ASP NMDS, the age bands used for collecting demographic data have been revised. This followed feedback from some partnerships that the age bands used in 2024-25 were of limited use. The Scottish Government and Iriss conducted a review of the age bands used in other health and social care data collections and – following consultation with partnerships – have implemented new age bands for the 2025-26 NMDS.

Large Scale Investigations

In 2024, the Scottish Government commissioned Iriss to develop National Large Scale Investigation (LSI) Guidance. Following a process of development, and consultation with ASP stakeholders, this is due to be published in late 2025.