24-25/38

I refer to your request for information dated 11 September 2024 (FOI 24-25/38) in which you asked for information regarding the contracts entered by Registrants under the Freedom of Information(Scotland) Act (FOISA).

Firstly, you asked how many “Newly Qualified Teachers in your council” had “secured a permanent teaching post immediately following the completion of their probationary year?” for the academic years 2017/18 – 2023/25. On 11 September we asked you to clarify if this request related to a specific Local Authority or all Local Authorities.

You confirmed the same day that this request relates to all the Local Authorities.

By way of explanation, please note that Registrants have access to their teacher record to update their personal data including employer information. Employment data held by us is provided directly by Registrants and is self-declared. With regards to your query, we do not hold records on the employment contracts Provisional Registrants enter when joining Local Authorities on reaching Full Registration. I have therefore applied section 17(1)(b)of FOISA to this query as we do not hold this information.

By way of advice and assistance, you may wish to contact the Local Authorities directly for this information as they are the bodies most likely to hold records relating to the nature of the contract they entered. As a body, GTC Scotland operates a professional Register and not an employment based one. This means that all individuals who meet our registration requirements can be registered with us. Applicants do not have to be actively employed as a teacher or live in Scotland to be registered with GTC Scotland. We have no role in the recruitment of teachers.

Secondly, you asked for the number of “teaching staff” in “permanent contracts, Fixed-term contracts, casual supply staff” as well as the number of “contracts offered” in these categories for “each of the last three academic years” being 2018/19 – 2022/23. Again, this is not information we hold, and I would advise you to contact the Local Authorities directly for this historic employment data. Again, we have applied section 17(1)(b) to this query.

If you are dissatisfied with this response, you may contact informationgovernance@gtcs.org.uk to request GTC Scotland conduct a review of this response. You should describe the original request and explain your grounds of review. You have 40 working days from receipt of this response 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.