Data quality

In producing these statistics about FPNC in Scotland, we have tried to make them as accurate as possible. There is more information about how the statistics were produced in the methodology and background information document that accompanies this publication. However, the following factors may affect the accuracy of the Scotland-level totals presented in this publication, and the local authority level data in the accompanying tables.

We aim to engage with local authorities to explore if data quality can be further improved for future publications.

In the meantime, we recommend the following are kept in mind when considering the statistics presented in this publication and the accompanying tables.

Changes to eligibility

Local authorities are responsible for delivering adult social care services locally, and may not always manage national eligibility consistently. Changes between years (or quarters) in the numbers of people receiving services, including Care at Home and personal care at home, and the number of hours of care provided, may be the result of changes to managing local eligibility criteria, and may not necessarily represent a change in need.

Data supplied by local authorities

As in 2023-24, the underlying data source for these statistics in 2024-25 is data provided to us by Scotland’s 32 local authorities, who have a statutory responsibility to provide adult social care services. The data is supplied in a Quarterly Monitoring Return. Please see the data sources section of the methodology and background information document for more information on what data was collected in the Quarterly Monitoring Return in 2024-25.

The Scotland-level totals presented in this report have been calculated by adding together the data for each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. Where values for a data item (for example, the number of long-stay care home clients) were supplied by all 32 local authorities, the Scotland total is referred to in this publication as ‘reported’. Where a value for one or more local authorities was missing from a data item, and we estimated the missing value(s), the Scotland-level total is referred to as ‘estimated’. Estimates of annual expenditure are also always referred to as ‘estimated’; please see the methodology and background information document for more information. Where a value for one or more local authorities was missing and we were not able to estimate it, the total is referred to as ‘across all the local authorities who submitted data’.  

Local authorities do their best to ensure that the data they provide in the Quarterly Monitoring Return is correct and accurate. Once we have received the data, Scottish Government also carries out a data validation exercise to further help ensure the data is free from any errors. See the methodology and background information document for more information.

However, the following factors may impact the accuracy of the data that local authorities provide and that are presented in this publication and the accompanying tables.

Local authority reporting systems, including changes to data reporting

The systems used to record and report data on social care provision can vary between authorities, and may also change over time. This can lead to improvements in the accuracy of the data provided in the Quarterly Monitoring Return.

For the 2024-25 Quarterly Monitoring Return, three local authorities reported changes in the way they report data for Care at Home clients (including those receiving personal care, and the estimated hours and expenditure on personal care), that are likely to have affected the numbers reported by them:

1. East Renfrewshire began including extra clients in their numbers for Care at home and personal care at home, due to the addition of service elements which they hadn’t previously been including in the return.
2. Falkirk began including Support At Home (equivalent to ‘Home Support’) clients in their submission to provide a more complete service reporting. This service provides more, generally, for the needs of adults under 65 with larger average and long running care packages to address complex disabilities.   
3. Midlothian made a change to their reporting system for Care at home and personal care at home. (No further details were provided).

As all three were unable to submit revised historic data, the numbers they submitted for 2024-25 showed increases from 2023-24, which are likely to have been caused (at least in part) by their reporting changes. We are unable to quantify how much of the change in their submitted data is directly due to their reported changes in reporting processes. Together these three local authorities make up around 6% of Scotland’s total population.

Reporting on Care at Home, and personal care at home – including hours and expenditure

Some local authorities do not distinguish between personal care at home and Care at Home in general, and class all Care at Home as personal care. Therefore the number and percentage of Care at Home clients reported as receiving personal care in this publication may be higher than the actual underlying position.

Some local authorities only provide personal care at home, and not any other kinds of Care at Home. For those areas, the number of clients receiving personal care at home will be equal to the number receiving Care at Home in the accompanying tables.

People receiving Care at Home have choice around how they receive their social care. This gives them control over what they receive and how it is paid for. This is known as self-directed support (SDS). There are four options for SDS. There is more information about them on the Scottish Government’s webpage about the extension of Free Personal Care to adults under the age of 65.

Depending on which SDS options their clients receive, and how this is recorded, some local authorities find it difficult to report accurately on the numbers of their clients who receive Care at Home or personal care at home, or the hours of personal care provided, or the estimated spend on personal care. This means that the numbers reported in this publication are likely to be under-estimates of the true values. We do not have enough information to quantify the possible scale of this under-estimation.

If clients change from receiving support through an SDS option a local authority can report on to another option which the local authority cannot (or the other way around), this may lead to changes in the data submitted to us. In 2024-25, one local authority (North Lanarkshire) reported that the reductions in their submitted numbers for Care at Home and personal care at home clients (and associated hours and spend on personal care at home) were due to some clients transferring onto certain SDS options, which they are unable to report on. We were not able to quantify the change in their numbers caused by this. North Lanarkshire contains around 6% of the total population of Scotland. It is possible that other local authorities’ numbers may have been similarly affected.

Estimated, missing and revised data

As in previous years, not all local authorities were able to supply a complete set of data in the 2024-25 Quarterly Monitoring Return. The following sub-sections give more information about data that were estimated, missing or revised in 2024-25, and the impact this may have had on the Scotland-level totals presented in this report.

Estimated data

Where possible we have estimated missing values. There is more information on how this was done in the data quality section of the methodology and background information document. Values for some local authorities have now been estimated over multiple years or quarters. Where this is the case, the estimate will have become less reliable over time.

For the 2024-25 publication, we have made a change to how we estimate some missing values. This has included revising some historic estimates for a small number of local authorities. This means that some figures for 2023-24 (and earlier years) presented in this publication may be different to what we have reported in previous publications. There is more information on how we have calculated estimated values in the accompanying methodology and background information document. This includes information on the change we have made this year to our estimation method.

Where data for one or more local authorities was estimated, the Scotland total presented in this publication is also described as estimated.

Where a percentage has been calculated, if either of the numbers contributing to it are estimates, then the percentage is also an estimate. Estimated percentages are usually referred to as estimates in the text of this publication. The exception is where they are presented as the change between two estimated numbers. In those instances, the percentage is also an estimate, but the word ‘estimate’ in relation to the percentage has sometimes been left out for readability.

All estimated values – including revised estimates - are marked as such in the accompanying tables.

Annual expenditure on FPNC in care homes in 2024-25 has been estimated, using the number of care home residents receiving FPNC in each quarter, provided to us by local authorities through the Quarterly Monitoring Return. There is more information on how these expenditure estimates are calculated in the data quality section of the accompanying methodology and background information document.

Annual expenditure on free personal care (FPC) to Care at Home clients in 2024-25 has been estimated. To calculate this estimate, we use expenditure on FPC to Care at Home clients in the final week of each quarter, as provided to us by local authorities through the Quarterly Monitoring Return. For more information on how we have calculated the estimated total annual expenditure from the quarterly data submitted, please see Appendix 2: Collected and calculated variables, in the methodology and background information document accompanying this publication.

Missing data

If a local authority did not return a value in 2024-25, it was not always possible for us to estimate it. Some values for some local authorities were therefore missing. Missing values are marked as [NR], for non-return, in the accompanying tables.

Where values for one or more local authority were missing, the Scotland total reported in this publication (and in the accompanying tables) will be an under-estimate. Such a total is referred to in this publication as the total ‘across all areas submitted’, and it will also be marked – or labelled – as such in the accompanying tables. 

The estimates of average hours per client or average spend per client are not affected by missing data. This is because they are calculated using data only from those local authorities who had returned both the pieces of data necessary for making the calculation. An example of this is when calculating the Scottish average for number of hours of personal care delivered to Care at Home clients aged 18 to 64 (section 4; 18 to 64 sub-section). Here, Glasgow City and Scottish Borders’ data on number of clients receiving personal care at home (table 6) was excluded from the calculation, because we had not received data from them on the number of hours of personal care provided (table 7).

To give a sense of the impact of missing data, the estimated percentage of Scotland's total population that lives in each local authority with missing data is indicated next to their names, below. The National Records of Scotland (NRS) mid-2024 population estimates were used to calculate these percentages.

The missing data for 2024-25 per local authority was:

Fife (estimated 7% of Scotland’s total population):

• estimated expenditure on personal care services provided to Care at Home clients (all ages), all quarters of 2024-25. (Table 2d of the Quarterly Monitoring Return; used to estimate tables 11a and 11b in the accompanying tables).

Glasgow City (estimated 12% of Scotland’s total population):

• number of hours of personal care provided to Care at Home clients (all ages), all quarters of 2024-25. (Table 2e of the Quarterly Monitoring Return; tables 7a and 7b in the accompanying tables).

Scottish Borders (estimated 2% of Scotland’s total population):

• number of hours of personal care provided to Care at Home clients, age 18 to 64, all quarters of 2024-25. (Table 2e of the Quarterly Monitoring Return; tables 7a and 7b in the accompanying tables).
• estimated expenditure on personal care services provided to Care at Home clients (all ages), all quarters of 2024-25. (Table 2d of the Quarterly Monitoring Return; used to estimate tables 11a and 11b in the accompanying tables).

South Ayrshire (estimated 2% of Scotland’s total population):

• estimated expenditure on personal care services provided to Care at Home clients (all ages), all quarters of 2024-25. (Table 2d of the Quarterly Monitoring Return; used to estimate tables 11a and 11b in the accompanying tables).

Care should be taken when comparing Scotland totals between years, and between different age groups, as different local authorities may be missing from the totals being compared in each year. There is information on which values are missing in each year in the relevant publications, which can be accessed from the Free Personal and Nursing Care collections page. Missing values are also marked as [NR] for ‘non-return’ in the accompanying tables.

Revised data

During the data validation process, some local authorities also identified errors or updates to their previously submitted numbers, for years 2023-24 and before. This has led to some values for 2023-24 or earlier being revised in this publication, compared to previous publications.

For the 2024-25 publication, we have made a change to how we estimate some missing values. This has included revising some historic estimates for a small number of local authorities. This means that some figures for 2023-24 (and earlier years) presented in this publication may be different to what we have reported in previous publications. There is more information on how we have calculated estimated values in the accompanying methodology and background information document. This includes information on the change we have made this year to our estimation method.

Revised values – including revised estimates - are marked up in the accompanying tables.

Interpreting changes over time

The statistics presented in this publication – and the accompanying tables – will be influenced by changes in the underlying situation they are describing, and also changes in the data collection, processing and reporting methods used. This should be kept in mind when considering changes in the statistics over time, both at annual and (in the accompanying tables) at quarterly level.

Possible reasons for change in the underlying demand for social care support and/or provision are:

• numbers of referrals for social care services, and the waiting times to process those
• changes to the allocation of services and funding, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic for financial year 2020-21
• rising living costs reducing the number of people who meet the self-funding threshold for care homes, thereby reducing the number of self-funders who are considered in this data collection; relevant when looking at numbers of self-funders who receive FPNC payments
• families changing work patterns to enable them to provide Care at Home for longer
• anxiety about going into a care home because of COVID-19, which may have affected values for years 2019-20 onwards
• when one partner in a relationship enters a care home, the remaining partner may choose to accompany them, or to stay in their own home.

The data presented in this report may also be affected by changes in how the data is collected. This can include:

• changes in local authority recording practices, and/or IT infrastructure
• changes to which local authorities can supply data, leading to changes in which values are missing or estimated in Scotland totals. For more on this please see the previous sub-section on estimated, missing and revised data.

Other changes to the data we collect on Free Personal and Nursing care that should be kept in mind when considering changes over time are that:

• Local authorities are responsible for delivering services locally, and may not always manage national eligibility consistently. Changes between years (or quarters) in the numbers of people receiving services, including Care at Home and personal care at home, and the number of hours of care provided, may be the result of changes to managing local eligibility criteria, and may not necessarily represent a change in need.
• Some local authorities have difficulty reporting on Care at Home, personal care at home and the associated hours and expenditure when the care is provided through some self-directed support (SDS) options. This may lead to their reported numbers being lower than the actual underlying position. Changes seen between years and quarters may be caused, in part, by clients’ care changing between SDS options that local authorities can report on, and those which they can’t (and the other way around).
• Prior to 2018-19, numbers of self-funding care home residents aged 18 to 64 receiving Free Nursing Care (FNC) payments were combined with the number of residents aged 65 and over receiving FNC, and a single total was published the covered both age groups. Since 2018-19, numbers for the two age groups have been published separately. However, as the number of residents aged 18 to 64 receiving FNC in the years before 2018-19 were very small, values for those aged 65 and over from 2018-19 onwards are broadly comparable with the ‘all clients’ value from earlier years.
• From 2017-18 onwards, data on numbers of Care at Home clients, numbers of Care at Home clients receiving personal care, and hours of personal care provided, for clients aged 65 and over, have been sourced from the Quarterly Monitoring Return. From 2012-13 to 2016-17, they were sourced from the Social Care Survey. Because of this change of data source, care should be taken if comparing values since 2017-18 with those from years before.
• Before 2021-22, data on expenditure on Free Personal Care (FPC) (in care homes and for Care at Home clients) aged 65 and over, and on Free Nursing Care (FNC), was sourced from the LFR03 return. Since 2021-22, we have used data supplied in the Quarterly Monitoring Return. Data from before 2021-22 is therefore not comparable with data since 2021-22. See ‘expenditure data’ under limitations of data and further background in the methodology and background information document accompanying this publication for more information.

There is more information about how the data we have collected has changed over time in the limitations of data and further background section of the methodology and background information document for this publication.