24-25/05

I refer to your request for information dated 24 April 2024 (FOI 24 - 25 / 05) in which you submitted various queries regarding referrals made to the General Teaching Council for Scotland which we have handled under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA).

As part of your request, you submitted the following queries:

1. Over the past 5 years how many teacher referrals has the GTCS received regarding allegations that involved teachers failing to properly address school bullying concerns (pupil to pupil bullying);

2. Over the past 5 years how many of the above referrals progressed beyond the initial consideration phase to an investigation;

3. Over the past 5 years how many of these above referrals progressed beyond the investigation phase to the panel phase;

4. Over the past 5 years how many of the above referrals resulted in a teacher being found unfit to teach.

I referred your request to our Regulatory Investigations team who considered it. To identify the referrals which involved allegations related to teachers failing to properly address pupil to pupil bullying we would need to interrogate 891 conduct referrals. Due to the significant amount of time and resources it would take to isolate the referrals as per your request we determined that section 12(1) of FOISA would apply due to the excessive cost of compliance.

As the cost of complying with this request, exceeds the £600 limit we are not obliged to comply with the request as per section 12 of FOISA.

However, as per section 15 under FOISA, I advised you that if you were to limit the scope of your request it could be brought within the fee limit. On 1 May, you requested that we limit the scope of our search to include only those referrals made by members of the public. We identified those requests which would apply and provided you with the Fee Notice below:

              Number of conduct referrals to be interrogated: 269

Actual cost of staff time at hourly rate of member of staff: £15.00 as the search would need to be undertaken by a Regulatory Investigations Officer or Regulatory Solicitor who has the required knowledge of these records.

Number of hours required to complete the search: 269 records for an average of 5 minutes per record for a total of 22.41 hours.

Total cost: 22.41 hours multiplied by £15.00 per hour = £336.23

Less first £100 = £226.23

Amount chargeable (10% of total) = £23.62

You indicated that you would be prepared to pay for processing this request and we confirmed receipt of the payment on 1 May.

We have interpreted your request to be for referrals made by members of the public to the General Teaching Council for Scotland involving repeated, unwanted behaviour by one pupil towards another where the referrer states this not been properly addressed by the teacher.

Firstly, you asked how many referrals over the past five years has GTC Scotland received regarding allegations that involved teachers failing to properly address pupil-to-pupil bullying. Between 24 April 2019 and 24 April 2024, a total of 13 referrals were received.

Secondly, you asked how many of these referrals referenced above progressed beyond the initial consideration phase to an investigation. A total of 2 progressed to the investigation phase.

Thirdly, you asked how many of the above referrals progressed beyond the investigation phase to the Panel phase. A single referral progressed to the Panel phase.

Finally, you asked how many of the above referrals resulted in a teacher being found unfit to teach. None of the referrals resulted in a teacher being found unfit to teach.

You may contact informationgovernance@gtcs.org.uk if you are dissatisfied with this response, to request GTCS conduct a review of this decision. You should describe the original request and explain your grounds of review. You have 40 working days from receipt of this decision to submit a review request. When the review process has been completed, if you are still dissatisfied, you may use the Scottish Information Commissioner's guidance on making an appeal to make an appeal to the Commissioner.