The Scottish Health Boards' Dental Epidemiological Programme, a joint venture between the Scottish Chief Administrative Dental Officers and the Dental Health Services Research Unit at the University of Dundee, was instigated in 1987 in response to the Chief Dental Officer's concern at the lack of any coordinated dental health information about children residing in the 15 Scottish Health Board areas. Each year a standardised dental survey of a random sample of children is now undertaken across Scotland. This paper reports, principally, the caries results of the first three surveys of 5, 12 and 5-year-olds undertaken at the end of 1987, 1988 and 1989, respectively. Marked variations in caries prevalence were found in different parts of Scotland, higher levels being recorded in the urbanised central belt and in the West. While there have been overall improvements since 1983, caries prevalence in Scotland remains substantially higher than in many other parts of the UK (mean DMFT for 12-year-olds in 1988 = 2.23, mean dmft for 5-year-olds in 1989 = 2.82), with 67.8% of 12-year-olds and 59.2% of 5-year-olds (in 1988 and 1989, respectively) still suffering from dentinal caries or past caries experience (DMFT/dmft greater than 0) when assessed by clinical examination alone. No continued improvement in caries prevalence was seen in the 1989 survey of 5-year-olds compared to the 1987 examination. Continued monitoring of this situation is indicated.