Fitness to Teach rules review
Introduction
We are carrying out a review of our Fitness to Teach Rules.
These are the rules that set out the legal framework for when and how we investigate Fitness to Teach referrals and how the outcomes of cases are determined.
As the independent regulator for teachers in Scotland, we maintain a register of teachers and investigate serious concerns about the conduct or professional competence of teachers on the register or applying to be on it, through our Fitness to Teach process.
We need to have Fitness to Teach Rules in place to meet the requirements of our governing legislation and to ensure we carry out our fitness to teach work fairly and lawfully. The Fitness to Teach process was introduced in 2012 when our legislation came into force and this is when our first set of Fitness to Teach Rules was published.
Watch the video below to find out more about how our Fitness to Teach process works.
Our current Fitness to Teach Rules were enacted in 2017. It is now time for us to review these rules.
The purpose of reviewing the Rules is to:
- ensure the Rules reflect current law and best regulatory practice
- make the Fitness to Teach process work as efficiently as it can, while still meeting the public interest and ensuring fairness.
Our current rules will remain in place until the review has concluded and new rules are implemented, which is likely to be in 2027.
Professional Standards Authority
Independent review
In tandem with this work, we have commissioned an independent review by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) of the performance and efficiency of the Fitness to Teach (conduct) process in the context of the statutory framework within which it sits. The results of the review will help inform the changes we need to make to the Fitness to Teach process and the rules that govern it.
Principles of good regulation
Our governing legislation requires us to perform our functions in a way that represents best regulatory practice, which includes ensuring that our actions are:
- proportionate;
- accountable;
- transparent and consistent; and
- are targeted only where action is needed.
This conforms to what the PSA describes as ‘right-touch’ regulation, which is informed by these and other principles, details of which are available in the Standards of Good Regulation that they use to measure the performance of the regulators that they oversee.
It is with reference to these standards, specifically adapted standards 14-18, that the PSA will review our rules and process. The PSA sought input from stakeholders to help them with this work and a contact email for them was available on this webpage for interested parties to share their views.
We expect the PSA to provide us with a report of their findings and recommendations in the early part of 2025.
Call for views
Separate to the PSA's work, we are also seeking your views.
The development of new or revised Rules will involve three main phases of work:
- Phase 1 – Discovery and Analysis
- Phase 2 – Development of draft Rules and associated policies
- Phase 3 – Implementation
A call for views took place between 13 September to 12 November, as part of our discovery and analysis phase. We will publish a summary of the responses that we received, and we will use the information to inform how we proceed in the second phase of the project.
There will be opportunities to provide further input on the detail of the proposed changes as the review progresses.