The Scottish schools inspectorate has been accused of “a wilful attempt to frustrate transparency”, after a Tes Scotland investigation uncovered that it had deleted information on historical school inspections.

In 2008, Education Scotland changed the way in which schools were selected for inspection and it has emerged that information predating this change is no longer available. It has also emerged that the organisation has begun deleting all school inspection reports that are more than five years old from the publicly accessible section of its website, in an attempt to remove information considered outdated.

The moves have come to light after Tes Scotland sought to uncover which Scottish schools had gone without inspection for a decade or longer. In response, Education Scotland said it did not hold the information.

The inspectorate stated: “In April 2008, Education Scotland changed the school sampling methodology [how schools were selected for inspection], and inspection information prior to this change has been deleted.”

The news - which has prompted the body’s new interim chief inspector to say he would review Education Scotland’s processes for retaining inspection information - has been heavily criticised by education experts and politicians alike.

Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said the decision was “simply astonishing, irresponsible behaviour by the key public body responsible for Scotland’s school system”.

Conservative shadow education secretary Liz Smith echoed this view, saying the situation was “utterly disgraceful”.

Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at the University of Edinburgh, meanwhile, said historical record-keeping was a crucial responsibility of being a regulator.

Education Scotland said the organisation had moved away from undertaking inspections on a cyclical basis - inspecting primary schools at least once every seven years and secondary schools at least once every six years - in 2008 to instead look at a sample of Scottish schools every year; after this point, inspection records prior to that year were deleted.

New interim chief inspector Graeme Logan told Tes Scotland that school inspection reports before 2008 would be “well out of date”, adding that the national reports produced by Education Scotland on the overall state of Scottish education meant progress at a system level could be judged.

However, he said that he had asked for a new “retention policy” to be drafted to make it clear to the public and to schools how long reports would be kept online, and for how long they would be retained centrally.

A Scottish government spokesperson said agencies and public bodies were expected to have robust data-management procedures in place, and added: “The interim chief inspector of education has made clear his intention to review and strengthen Education Scotland’s processes.”

This is an edited version of an article in the 29 September edition of Tes Scotland. Subscribers can read the full story here. To subscribe, click here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here. Tes Scotland magazine is available at all good newsagents.