Due to the unprecedented circumstances that Scotland and the rest of the world are currently in, Official Statistics producers have been asked by Scottish Government to consider ways in which we can support planning of responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the light of increased demand for data that we hold on those working in the sector and the services they work in we took advice from the Office of the Chief Statistician in Scottish Government and from key stakeholders in the sector with a view to bringing forward publication of provisional detailed data from December 2019. This would not otherwise be available until after the publication of the main report (the Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on Workforce Data) which will not be available for publication until August 2020.

The information contained within the provisional data sets will present data on the number of staff by their location (full postcode) and also by details of the registered care service they work in. In the case of local authority social workers this is presented by local authority area and by the type of team they work in. Childminders data is presented simply at the level of the local authority.

The data set will be published on Monday 18^th May at 9.30am on the SSSC workforce data website (data.sssc.uk.com).