Original request
Summary of request
Full request
Please could you therefore provide me with the following information on fitness to teach conduct cases processed under your 2017 fitness to teach rules.
Please could you let me know how many cases meet all of the following criteria (that is the number of cases that meet all three criteria)
- The referral was made within five years of the most recent alleged misconduct
- The case remained with the GTCS until more than five years had passed since the most recent alleged misconduct.
- No application to cancel the case has been brought by the Presenting Officer
For each of the cases identified above (that is the cases that meet all three criteria) please could provide:
- The date of any Panel consideration of the case
- A copy of any information about the case previously published on your website
Please could you also let me know how many case meet all of the following criteria (that is the number of cases that meet all three criteria)
- The referral was made within five years of the most recent alleged misconduct
- The case remained with the GTCS until more than five years had passed since the most recent alleged misconduct.
- An application to cancel the case has been brought by the teacher or their representative
For each of the cases identified above (that is the cases that meet all three criteria) please could provided
- The date of any Panel consideration of the case.
- Whether the application to cancel was accepted by a panel
- Whether the application to cancel was rejected by a panel
- A copy of any information about the case previously published on your website
Response
I refer to your request for information dated 07 February 2025 (FOI 24-25/93) in which you asked various queries related to cases under the 2017 Fitness to Teach Rules which we have handled under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA). Please accept my apologies for not sending through this response last Friday, this was an oversight. Please now find our substantive response below.
I have referred your request for information to our Regulatory Investigations team who have considered it. To locate and retrieve the information we would need to interrogate 663 records, being referrals dating back to 28 August 2017, to determine if they fit the criteria of your request. Due to the significant amount of time and resources it would take to interrogate the records we have determined that section 12(1) of FOISA would apply due to the excessive cost of compliance.
Please see our detailed Fees Notice below:
The number of records to be interrogated: 663
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 Case Manager who has the required knowledge of these records.
Number of hours required to complete the search: 663 records at an average of 10 minutes per record for a total of 110.5 hours
Total cost: 110.5 hours multiplied by £15.00 per hour = £1657.50
As part of our duty to provide advice and assistance under section 15 of FOISA, I can advise that if you were to limit the number of years requested or remove certain qualifiers (such as whether the referral was made within five years or if an application for cancellation was made) then this would affect the scope of your request and reduce the Fees Notice as a result.
You may contact informationgovernance@gtcs.org.ukif you are dissatisfied with this response, to request GTC Scotland 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 do so.
Response file
Internal Review request
Summary of request
