GTC Scotland successfully petitions Court of Session for more information sharing by Disclosure Scotland

GTC Scotland welcomes the recent decision of the Court of Session, which confirms GTC Scotland’s long-standing position that Disclosure Scotland can and should share more information with GTC Scotland. This would allow GTC Scotland to better carry out its statutory Fitness to Teach and public protection function as the regulator of teachers in Scotland.

Commenting on the outcome of the decision, Dr Pauline Stephen, Chief Executive and Registrar of GTC Scotland said:

It is GTC Scotland’s role to ensure public protection by investigating fitness to teach. In the course of investigations about registered teachers GTC Scotland has asked for information from Disclosure Scotland which has not been provided. This has caused difficulties and delays in GTC Scotland fulfilling our regulatory function.

We invested considerable time, effort and cost to reach the conclusion that the Court issued on 23 October 2026; we believed it was the right thing to do in the public interest and to ensure public protection, which of course includes child protection.

This follows another successful outcome for GTC Scotland in 2021 when it petitioned the Court of Session about Police Scotland’s refusal to share information.

Together, these decisions confirm the need for improved information sharing across the child protection and safeguarding landscape. GTC Scotland will continue to call for the need for more effective national information sharing to strengthen and improve public protection systems and practice.

You can read the full judgment here.

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