Primary teacher workforce planning analysis, modelling, policy documents: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01674
Date received: 18 June 2018
Date responded: 17 July 2018

Information requested

Any analysis, modeling, policy work or other documents on teacher workforce planning for primary school level post 2020.

Response

The Scottish Government carries out Teacher Workforce Planning (TWP) to ensure that Scotland has the number of teachers it needs. A teacher workforce planning model is one part of this process.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the teaching workforce planning model would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. This is because of the time required to suppress the data in the model to protect personal information and because the interlinked nature of the model means it would require a lot of time to limit release of information to data relating to post 2020 only. 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. This may be done by not limiting the request to post 2020 information which would then mean the whole model could be released. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioners "Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs" on his website at:

http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx

Results from the teacher workforce planning model are used by the Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group (TWPAG) alongside a range of other evidence to make recommendations to Ministers on the number of places required in ITE.

Papers from the December 2017 meeting of the TWPAG can be found here:

/publications/teacher-workforce-planning-advisory-group-december-2017-meeting/

The Scottish Government (SG) sends a letter annually to the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) confirming the target for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) allocations and which SFC then send out to the universities offering these courses. The original letter from the SG is attached, the letter sent by SFC is available on the SFC website at the link below:

http://www.sfc.ac.uk/web/FILES/announcements_sfcan032018/SFCAN032018_ITE_Intake_Targets_2018-19.pdf

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

Pupil projections are obviously a key factor in determining required teacher numbers and, in turn, Initial Teacher Education allocations in universities.

However, in terms of the implications of pupil projections on the requirement for additional school places and/or new school build or closures, these decisions are taken locally by local authorities with many other local factors taken into account, such as new planned housing estates, for example. As such, there are no specific policy documents produced by SG solely concerning pupil projections and their implications.

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-18-01674 related letter to SFC.pdf

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3 page PDF

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132.1 kB