Primary School inspections: FOI release

Information requested

An Excel (or preferably Google Sheets) document listing:
Column A - The names of each primary school that has gone uninspected for 10 years or more.
Column B - The local authority that the corresponding school in Column A is in.
Column C - The number of years since the corresponding school in Column A was inspected.
Column D - The rating that the corresponding school in Column A received at its last inspection.

I have attached an example spreadsheet to this email in case my description is confusing - I always think it's easier to show than tell!.

If gathering all the information is deemed too time consuming, then please ignore my request for the information in Column D.

If it is still too time consuming, then please only give me the four columns of data on schools in Edinburgh, the Lothians, and Fife.

Response

We have provided the information that is available for columns A to C that you requested within the attached Excel spreadsheet, see Annex A. The spreadsheet lists the primary schools that have not been inspected for 10 years or more and includes the local authority and number of years since the last inspection. This also includes schools that have not been inspected since opening, where that duration is 10 years or more.

Please note the following points in relation to the information provided:

• The list of primary schools includes local authority primary schools that are open and eligible for inspection sampling and is taken from the Scottish Government school contact details dated April 2020 (https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-contact-details/)
• The time since last inspection is calculated based on the original inspection and does not include any subsequent further inspections which took place as a result of the outcome of the original inspection.

You also requested ‘the rating that the corresponding school in Column A received at its last inspection’. You stated “If gathering all the information is deemed too time consuming, then please ignore my request for the information in Column D’.

Some of the information you have requested above is available from the Scottish Government website at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202000044014/.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you.

Our aim is to provide information whenever possible, however in this instance some of the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested for the school quality indicator grading data previous to 2008 would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. This is because we do not hold this information in the format requested. 

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.
You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. You may want to specify an area you would like us to focus on e.g. inspections in a specific year.
You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website at:
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI-2020000053980 - Information released - Annex A

File type

Excel document

File size

31.8 kB