CHANGES to a controversial survey that quizzed teenagers about their sexual history are to be agreed at a meeting of councillors later today.

After the Scottish Government's health and wellbeing census caused widespread outrage last year, councillors asked officials to look at whether two different versions of the survey could be made available for S4 to S6 – one with sexual health questions and one without.

Council chiefs have now confirmed this will happen and have put forward some suggested revisions to sexual health questions for approval by the education committee this afternoon.

When the S4 to S6 survey attracted a backlash from parents, the council temporarily suspended it while deciding what to do next.

On the back of a separate request from elected members, candidate numbers will now also be removed from all responses to the survey.

There will be a standard S4 to S6 quiz sent out with no sex-related questions in it but, if pupils are willing to share that information, there will be a second survey they can answer that will only contain sexual health queries.

The proposed sex-related questionnaire will ask pupils if they have a boyfriend or girlfriend – with an option of 'prefer not to say' – before moving on to queries about whether pupils have been abused by their partner and what level of sexual experience they have had.

Education chiefs said in a report: 'Officers have been working with the Scottish Government and another local authority on the adaptations to the survey requested by the education and communities committee.

'All of the requests from the January committee are able to be progressed.

'This means that the Scottish candidate number is removed from all surveys, there will be an opt in for permission to complete the survey rather than an opt out and that two surveys will be offered in S4 to S6.

'The first will be a survey without any sexual health questions.

'An additional second survey will be offered for S4 to S6 which will only include the sexual health questions.'

Students will also be asked if they feel they know where to go for help or information regarding sexual health or whether they feel they can say ‘no’ to sexual experiences they don’t want.

The final question will aim to ascertain what degree of sexual experience pupils have had, from none at all or a small amount to more intimate activities and sexual intercourse.