24-25/16

I refer to your request for information dated 3 July 2024 (FOI 24 - 25/16) in which you asked for “a breakdown of the requests for, and allocations of, primary and secondary school teachers for each local authority in Scotland” for “the coming year (2024/25) and the last four academic years” with secondary schools’ data to “include the probationers subject” which we have handled under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act.  

We indicated on 4 July that due to the significant amount of time and resources that would be spent locating, retrieving and interrogating the 116 identified records we determined that section 12(1) of FOISA would apply due to the excessive cost of compliance. We provided a detailed Fees Notice and advised that if you were to amend the scope of your original request this would reduce the amount and bring it within the £100 exemption.

On 4 July you indicated this request could be restricted to the “coming school year and the school year just gone” with the “breakdowns by secondary subject” to remain. Whilst this would still exceed the £100 exemption under section 12(1) of FOISA, we agreed to waive this fee as part of our duty to provide advice and assistance under section 15 of FOISA.

Please note that your query for the number of provisionally registered teachers requested for Teacher Induction Scheme placements by local authorities between 2017/18 and 2023/24 is already available, as per section 25(1) of FOISA, on our Disclosure Log as the response to FOI23-24/23 for all provisionally registered teachers requested by Local Authorities between 2017/18 and 2023/24 categorised by Primary, Secondary and Subject.

We have now collected information on the number of Teacher Induction Scheme placements offered by each local authority for the 2024/25 registration year and have provided this in Table 1 in the enclosure accompanying this response. Please note that these figures are subject to change over time due to the addition or amendment of placements by local authorities.

We have also collected information on the number of Teacher Induction Scheme allocations to each local authority between 2020/21 and 2024/25 and provided this in Tables 2 to 5 in the enclosure accompanying this response. Please note that the date range used in the enclosures represent the placements allocated at the time and may include teachers who deferred or withdrew from the Teacher Induction Scheme after allocation and before the placement began.

You may also be interested in allocation data published on our website regarding the preference distribution of individuals on the Teacher Induction Scheme.

You may contact informationgovernance@gtcs.org.ukif you are dissatisfied with this response, to request GTC Scotland conduct a review of it. 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.

Enclosures:        

• Table 1: The number of Teacher Induction Scheme vacancies offered by local authorities in the 2024-25 registration year as at 6 May 2024;
• Table 2: The number of provisionally registered teachers allocated Teacher Induction Scheme placements in the 2024-25 registration year as at 8 May 2024 broken down by local authority and registration category / subject;
• Table 3: The number of provisionally registered teachers allocated Teacher Induction Scheme placements in the 2023-24 registration year as at 15 May 2023 broken down by local authority and registration category / subject;
• Table 4: The number of provisionally registered teachers allocated Teacher Induction Scheme placements in the 2022-23 registration year as at 16 May 2022 broken down by local authority and registration category / subject; 
• Table 5: The number of provisionally registered teachers allocated Teacher Induction Scheme placements in the 2021-22 registration year as at 20 May 2021 broken down by local authority and registration category / subject;
• Table 6: The number of provisionally registered teachers allocated Teacher Induction Scheme placements in the 2020-21 registration year as at 2 June 2020 broken down by local authority and registration category / subject.

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