25-26/049

We refer to your request for information (FOI 25-26/049) dated 25 October 2025 which we have handled under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA). 

You requested:  

“In each of the last 5 years, what were the (i) longest (ii) shortest and (iii) average waiting times for a decision on a Qualified Outside Scotland application?

In each of the last 5 years how many decisions on a Qualification Outside Scotland application were (i) approved (ii) rejected (iii) undecided until the following year?”

Our response:

In each of the last 5 years, what were the (i) longest (ii) shortest and (iii) average waiting times for a decision on a Qualified Outside Scotland application?

We do not hold statistical information on waiting times prior to October 2024 and have applied section 17 of FOISA to this portion of your query as information not held.  

We can, however, provide information from October 2024 and have provided this in Table 1 below as data extracted on 13 November 2025. Please note that we have provided the information for two periods in table below being applications concluded between 1 October 2024 and 31 March 2025, and between 1 April 2025 and 13 November 2025 as the date on which the data was extracted. The end date of 31 March 2025 is based on the registration year of GTC Scotland which runs from April to the end of March in the following year.

By way of advice and assistance, applications timescales may be impacted by the time taken by applicants to source additional required detail to allow their final assessment decision to be issued to them.  This could occur during the initial individual assessment of their qualifications or may occur after applicants receive a pre-decision notification.  Pre-decision notifications outline a provisional assessment decision and state the reasons for this decision.  Within this pre-decision notification it asks applicants to provide us with any additional information that they believe is helpful and may impact upon the final decision.  The timescales in table 1 therefore reflect this 'inactive assessment period'.  The longest time periods in the table above may therefore reflect outliers where an initial decision was issued earlier and then the applicant chose to source and supply additional information that they felt it important that we take into consideration prior to issuing their final registration decision.

In each of the last 5 years how many decisions on a Qualification Outside Scotland application were (i) approved (ii) rejected (iii) undecided until the following year?

We do not hold statistical information on Qualified Outside Scotland application outcomes based on the categories requested for the last 5 years and have applied section 17 of FOISA to this request.

We can, however, provide information on the outcomes of Qualified outside Scotland applications by the registration year in which the application was concluded from 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26. A registration year runs from 1 April to 31 March. The figures for 2025-26 are registration year to date as of 31 October 2025.  

The 3 outcomes are: 

Applicants who are offered registration and go on to join the Register 

Applicants who are refused registration because they do not meet the criteria to be a teacher in Scotland 

Applicants who choose not to complete the assessment or who are offered registration but choose not to join the Register.  

*Please note, in Table 2, the increase in decisions where individuals chose not to register in 2024/25 was partially due to a data cleansing exercise, whereby older applications which had not progressed due to inaction of the applicant were closed. 

By way of advice and assistance, you may also be interested in the Registration Report: Data and Insight (2025) published on our website.  

Right to review and appeal

You may request a review of how we have dealt with this information request if you are dissatisfied with this response. This can be done by contacting us at informationgovernance@gtcs.org.uk, describing your original request and explaining the basis for your dissatisfaction. 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 can apply to the Scottish Information Commissioner for a decision within 6 months of a review request. You can obtain details of how to do this in the Scottish Information Commissioner’s guidance on making an appeal.