Students and Mental Health (FOI)

​Request

How many students in full time education have been diagnosed with mental health issues? Both primary and secondary school.

Response

While the Education Department do hold records on students in full time education this may or may not include individual information on a confirmed diagnosis. Diagnoses are agreed by health professionals, rather than education professionals who are often not informed of agreed diagnoses, and in many cases would not expect to be.

Therefore to collate the required information would mean going through each student folder and the Education Department has determined that the gathering of this data would be over the 12.5 hour limit, and would not provide an accurate response to this request.

Exemptions

Article 16:  A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed any fee of an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of Article 15.