The Scottish Government asked its independent spending watchdog to change how school performance gaps were measured for a report which proved damning for Dundee.
However, Audit Scotland rebuffed the attempts to alter comparisons when it published the paper that showed the city, along with Clackmannanshire, had the country’s lowest achievement rates.
Ministers came under fire as they were accused of “watering down” the report showing Scotland’s slide down education league tables after new information emerged through a Freedom of Information request.
An attempted change attempted to stop a comparison between Dundee and East Renfrewshire, showing 28% of S4 pupils in the city achieved five level five awards last year, compared to 71% in the west of the country.
It said: “Would it not make more sense to compare like with like in terms of SIMD or similar?”
SIMD, or Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, identifies concentrations of deprived areas across Scotland.
Labour’s Dundee City Council group leader Kevin Kennan said: “If the government has interfered then it’s just another attempt to massage figures so that anything they’re involved in looks good.”
One area where the Scottish Government was successful in making a change was a bar chart comparing the country’s academic performance with nations doing better than it.
The graphic was labelled “misleading” in the comments and was replaced by a map which made it harder to see the best-performing countries when the final report was published.
In total more than 30 changes to the report, ranging from apparent factual inaccuracies to differently toned analysis, were recommended by the SNP administration.
The Scottish Government was one of 11 bodies represented on Audit Scotland’s advisory group for the report who were allowed to provide comments. The independent body decided itself whether or not to implement the changes and was not bound to adopt any of the suggested modifications.
A spokesman for the First Minister referred to previous comments by Education Secretary Mike Russell, who accused Labour of attempting “a smear not just the Scottish Government but also Audit Scotland” when previous concerns about the report were raised.
An Audit Scotland spokesman said: “This report followed the normal process for all Audit Scotland draft reports of checking for accuracy with relevant bodies. The published report is the one signed off by the Accounts Commission for Scotland.”