24-25/41

I refer to your request for information dated 25 September 2024 (FOI 24-25/41) in which you asked how many “GTCS Professional Accreditations” have been given “since the programme started” including how many “GTCS Professional Accreditations appear on the GTCS Register of Teachers” which we have handled under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA).

On 27 September, we requested clarification from you to confirm if you were referring to Professional Recognition and in particular Accredited Professional Recognition Programmes and you responded on 29 September indicating that this request concerns Accredited Professional Recognition Programmes. We have interpreted this to be for the number of Registrants who have received a Professional Recognition award by successfully completing an Accredited Professional Recognition Programme.

By way of explanation, Professional Recognition can be awarded in two ways: either through the Registrant submitting an individual application directly or, since 2012, under an accredited Professional Recognition Programme. The award is held for a period of 5 years and is a searchable part of our register.

Once a Registrant has achieved Professional Recognition, we cannot distinguish on our Register whether that was the result of completing an accredited programme or an individual application. Therefore, we are only able to provide you with the recipients of Professional Recognition awards generally and cannot distinguish between those who may have done so either through a specifically accredited programme or individual application.

Additionally, we requested clarification on whether you wanted to know the number of Registrants holding a Professional Recognition award in line with your first query or the number of Accredited Professional Recognition Programmes used by Registrants. You responded with “I am asking how many Professional Accretions (sic) for those who have gone through it, appear on the Register?” and later confirming “How many GTCS Professional Accreditations appear on the GTCS Register of teachers?”. We have interpreted your request to be the number of individuals currently holding an award of Professional Recognition under the list of Accredited Professional Recognition Programmes award areas.

In response to your first query, we have provided this information in the enclosure accompanying this response labelled FOI 24-25_41_Records for disclosure being the number of awards given for Professional Recognition across Accredited Professional Recognition Programmes since 2012 as data extracted on 25 September 2024. You will see that I have not provided the exact low number in some cases as disclosing these could enable individuals to be identified. This would breach the data protection principles set out in data protection legislation. FOISA does not require us to provide this sort of information as it is exempt under section 38(1)(b).

In response to your second query, as data extracted on 25 September 2024 there were 2976 Professional Recognition award recipients held by individuals on the Register of Teachers. Please note that a single Registrant may hold multiple award areas for Professional Recognition.

You may contact informationgovernance@gtcs.org.uk if 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 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.