Introduction

About this publication

This publication on Adult Support and Protection in 2025-26 was first published on the Scottish Government website at 09.30am on 6 October 2026.

The statistics presented in this publication relate to Adult Support and Protection (ASP) activity in Scotland during the financial year 2025-26 (from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026). A breakdown by the four financial quarters of the year is available in the accompanying supplementary tables.

The data behind these statistics comes from the ASP National Minimum Dataset (NMDS), which is maintained by the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (Iriss) on behalf of the Scottish Government. All 32 Scottish local authorities (councils) submit data to the Scottish Government for the ASP NMDS each financial quarter, which is then securely passed to Iriss.

There is more information about Adult Supoprt and Protection, and the ASP NMDS, in section 6 – further information on ASP and the ASP NMDS.

This is the second publication of statistics based on data from the ASP NMDS, and follows on from the previous publication that covered ASP activity reported for financial year 2024-25 (published on 9 September 2025). This 2025-26 edition contains similar statistics to those published for 2024-25. We have included comparisons between statistics for 2024-25 and 2025-26 where appropriate, but this was not possible for all indicators reported on. Please see the data quality notes for each individual statistic, and the accompanying technical report, for more details.

Please note that the statistics in this publication are not comparable with those in the publication Adult Support and Protection Scotland: April 2019 to March 2022, released in May 2023. This is due to a significant change to the data collection and a shift from a national annual ASP survey to the newly developed ASP NMDS, that coincided with an update to the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007: Code of Practice (July 2022) and introduced updated ASP terminology. The data collected on the indicators in the ASP NMDS (and reported on in this publication, and the 2024-25 one) follows this updated terminology from July 2022. The one exception is for Large Scale Investigations (LSIs) (indicator 19 in the ASP NMDS), where the definition has remained consistent and comparisons can be made over a longer time period. Please see the section on LSIs for more information.

Why these statistics matter

The Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 (the ASP Act) came into effect in 2008, and gives greater protection to adults at risk of harm or neglect in Scotland. It places a duty on local authorities to make inquiries about a person's wellbeing, property or financial affairs if they know or believe that the person is an adult at risk, and that they might need to intervene in order to protect the person's wellbeing, property or financial affairs. Certain public bodies - such as Police Scotland and the relevant Health Board – are also required to assist in this. There is more information about the ASP Act in section 6 – further information on ASP and the ASP NMDS.

The statistics presented in this report support a wide range of stakeholders - including policy makers, Ministers, and the general public - to understand how adult support and protection arrangements in Scotland are working, and to identify where further improvements in policy and practice may be required.

An Official Statistics in Development Publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics in development. Official statistics in development may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The Scottish Government worked collaboratively with Iriss on this publication. Scottish Government statisticians have helped to ensure this publication has been produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. For more information on the roles of the two organisations, please see the data and methodology chapter of the accompanying technical report.

Iriss and the Scottish Government will continue to work with local practitioners and national agencies throughout financial year 2026-27 to further strengthen and implement the ASP NMDS. This will include supporting them to consistently gather and report on the indicators. For more information, please see the sub-section on future developments within section 6.

We also welcome feedback from other users of the statistics in this publication. Please contact us with any feedback you have, using the details supplied in the enquiries section of the Tell us what you think section. 

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.

Further notes on the statistics in this publication

The statistics in this publication are presented at national (Scotland) level. Some differences exist in how local authorities implement the ASP Act and the associated ASP Code of Practice. This variation impacts the comparability across local authorities of the data reported for some indicators. During 2025-26 there was also some continued variation in recording practices and data reporting across local authorities. For this reason, we considered the data were not sufficiently robust enough to enable meaningful comparisons to be drawn between local authorities. For the same reasons, the statistics presented in this publication are referred to as ‘reported’ numbers. The Scottish Government and Iriss will work with key ASP stakeholders to decide when the data returned for each indicator is consistent and robust enough to allow for meaningful comparison between local authorities. There is more information on future development plans for the ASP NMDS in section 6 – further information on ASP and the ASP NMDS.

This publication does not present statistics on all the data items (indicators) returned for the 2025-26 ASP NMDS. Statistics on certain indicators have not been presented where the Scottish Government and Iriss consider that:

• local variation in ASP practice, or in data recording and reporting, are too high to report meaningfully at a national level
• or where we believe more work needs to be done to understand these local variations
• or where a substantial number of local authorities were unable to provide data.

For more information, please see the sub-section on future developments within section 6, or the data and methodology chapter in the accompanying technical report.

Data quality considerations relevant to each statistic are presented within each section or sub-section, with more details provided in the data and methodology chapter of the accompanying technical report.

Statistics presented as a rate per 100,000 people aged 16+ uses mid-2025 population estimates produced by National Records of Scotland (NRS) (published 14 July 2026). The ASP NMDS gives local authorities the opportunity to collect data for people aged 16 or 17, because at these ages young people might be supported through children's or adult's support services, or be transitioning from one to another. For more information please see this Iriss document.