Council pays damages over bullying records row
- Published
A parent has won damages from a Scottish council after proving his daughter's school records were altered during a dispute over bullying.
East Dunbartonshire Council told the parent it was not possible to edit records of the incident involving a weapon and did not release them.
But after a court challenge the council was forced to release the records, which showed changes had been made.
The council said it did not comment on live matters.
The battle to get the data released took three years and a ruling from Glasgow Sheriff Court has said this delay meant the parent had "suffered distress" and should be awarded £3,000 compensation from the council.
The parent, who has asked not to be named, had raised a formal bullying complaint with his daughter's school to put in measures to protect her from another child due to what was described as the child's unusual interest in his daughter.
The father-of-three said after his daughter returned to school, which is in East Dunbartonshire, there was an incident involving a dangerous weapon which went unnoticed in a supervised play area.
The school told the parent, who works as a data analyst, that the incident had been properly logged on a nationwide education IT system known as Seemis. This is used for recording pupil data and tracking bullying complaints.
But the father later suspected his concerns were not being dealt with properly and the narrative of what happened was being "whitewashed" in favour of the school.
An email from an official at East Dunbartonshire to the parent said "restrictions in the Seemis system do not allow records to be changed".
But this turned out to be incorrect and when the pupil's full records were eventually released they showed multiple changes had been made after the incident.
The content of these changes is not recorded by the system.
'Children at risk'
In its correspondence with the parent, East Dunbartonshire Council has always insisted there was no wrongdoing associated with the changes made to the records.
But the parent said: "I have been told by several sources that record tampering by teachers is quite common as it's easier to cover matters up than deal with the underlying bullying problem.
"This practice not only puts children at risk, it needs to stop as it's unlawful.
"With East Dunbartonshire Council still refusing to accept this is a problem I am being forced to raise further legal action against them."
East Dunbartonshire Council previously said it takes all allegations of bullying seriously and schools take appropriate action to investigate
The part of the Seemis system for monitoring bullying incidents was rolled out in 2019, but research by watchdog Education Scotland suggests many schools are not using it properly.
The watchdog sent inspectors to 35 primary and secondary schools last year to evaluate the recording and monitoring of bullying incidents. They found only about two-thirds of them were fully implementing national guidance by recording incidents on Seemis.
The Scottish government has pledged to review why this is happening.
Ann Davie, depute chief executive of East Dunbartonshire Council, said: "We do not comment on live matters involving individuals, families or council officers."