Education Resources
Executive Director
Tony McDaid
Head of Education
Ms Elaine Miller
Our ref:
EDU/FOI/2017/23a
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Your ref:
If calling ask for: Molly Magee
Phone:
01698 454512
Date:
23 February 2017
Dear Ms Miller
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
Request for Information
Thank you for your request for information, received on 24 January 2017 and your clarification of
your request, received on 28 January 2017. Your request has been dealt with in accordance with
the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
Please find listed below your request for information and our response:
From your request of 24 January 2017:
1. The total number of students attending local authority High Schools in your area.
2. For the academic years 2014/15/ 2015/16 and 2016/17 to date please specify per High
School:
a. Number of students per high school, per year and for S3 and above the total
number of pupils per subject.
b. The FTE teaching requirements for each department, including science subjects;
Please breakdown this FTE teaching requirement per science subject.
c. The FTE teaching shortages in each department. Please disregard staff that fill in
but do not have a specific teaching qualification in the subject they are filling in for.
As your new request updates and amends the one above, we have responded to the updated
request below.
From your email of 28 January 2017:
1. The total number of pupils attending ALL local authority High Schools in your area.
I can confirm that the secondary school pupil roll for 2016/17 as at the September pupil census
was 18579 pupils.
Please refer to table 1 for a breakdown of total pupil rolls per school.
2. For the academic years 2014/15/ 2015/16 and 2016/17 to date please specify per High
School within your local authority:
a. Number of pupils per high school, per subject for S3 and above,
In response to the above request, I can advise you that our pupil information management
system does not store historical data on number of pupils per high school, per subject for
S3 and above. Accordingly, Section 17 of FOISA (information not held) applies to this part
of your request.
In respect of data for 2016/17, I can provide a table showing number of pupils per subject.
Please refer to table 2 (attached) for this information. This is a spreadsheet which has
been formatted to print each school separately (58 pages when printed).
Council Offices, Almada Street, Hamilton ML3 0AE Phone: 01698 454512 Fax: 01698 454465
Text Phone: 01698 454039 Email:
xxx.xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxx.xxx.xx
Please note, however, that some information has been removed from the spreadsheet
where numbers are so low as to lead to the identification of individual pupils. Where the
figure is less than 5, this has been replaced with an asterix (*).
The Council is of the view that this information is exempt from disclosure under FOISA, the
relevant exemption is:
The information amounts to personal information which relates to another person and
the disclosure of the information to you would breach the data protection principles laid
down by the Data Protection Act 1998 (section 38(1)(b) and (2)(a)(i) or (2)(b)).
How the exemption applies to the information being withheld The Council considers that the requested information is personal data as defined by the
Data Protection Act 1998 (“the DPA”). Personal data is defined within the DPA as “data
which relate to a living individual who can be identified:
a. from those data, or
b. from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come
into the possession of, the data controller…”
Consequently, in order to be personal data, the information must:
• be about a living individual, and
• relate to that individual, i.e. tell something or be used in some way regarding the
individual concerned.
The information you have requested is considered personal data as it is about living
individuals and relates to the number of pupils listed by subject and pupil year broken down
by individual school. As a result of giving such detail, some numbers are so low that
individual young people can be identified from that information.
As you have requested information that consists of the personal data of someone else, the
Council must be satisfied that it can provide the personal data without breaching one of the
rules set down in the Data Protection Act 1998. These rules are called the data protection
principles. In cases such as this the relevant principle to be considered is the first data
protection principle. The first data protection principle states that the disclosure of the
information to you must be
•
fair and
•
lawful (and in particular meet a condition set down in Schedule 2, and if the information
is sensitive personal data, a condition set down in Schedule 3, to the Data Protection
Act).
It is the practice of the Scottish Information Commissioner to consider whether disclosure of
the information would be lawful in relation to meeting a processing condition before looking
at the more general principles of fairness and lawfulness. This Council adopts the same
approach.
Meeting a condition set down in Schedule 2 of the DPA? As the Council has not sought the consent of individuals concerned, the only relevant
condition is Condition 6. This condition must be met regardless of whether the personal
data is either personal data or sensitive personal data.
It states that the processing (the disclosure to you) is necessary for the purposes of
legitimate interests pursued by you, except where the processing (i.e. the disclosure) is
unwarranted in any particular case by reason of prejudice to the rights and freedoms or
legitimate interests of the employee or other person concerned.
Consequently, the Council has to consider
1. do you have a legitimate interest in obtaining this personal data (or is there a relevant
public interest)?
2. if yes, is the disclosure necessary to achieve these legitimate interests? and
3. even if the processing is necessary for the legitimate interests of the requestor, would
the disclosure nevertheless cause unwarranted prejudice to the rights and freedoms or
legitimate interests of the data subject?
2
Do you have a legitimate interest in obtaining this personal data (or is there a
relevant public interest)? The Council has considered the context of your request to determine if there is an indication
that you have expressed a legitimate interest in receiving personal data relating to the
number of pupils per stage and per subject broken down by school name.
The Council recognises your general right to request information under the terms of FOISA,
however, there is no indication of why personal information relating to these pupils broken
down by pupil stage, individual school and subject would be of a personal interest to you.
As your personal interest cannot be identified, the Council must consider if there is a
relevant public interest in relation to the release of this information. The Council is of the
view that the public interest would not be served in terms of scrutiny or accountability by
releasing this information into the public domain to the level of detail requested. The
individuals concerned would not expect their personal information to be released into the
public domain.
Accordingly, as there is no evidence of a legitimate personal or public interest then this part
of the condition cannot be met and therefore the Council is refusing this part of your request
for information.
b. The FTE teaching requirements for each department, including science subjects in
order to teach these pupils.
I understand the timescale for this request to be the same as that of requests 1 and 2.
I can advise you that information on departmental teaching requirements changes
constantly. It is not centrally recorded by the Council nor is it held on a historical basis.
Accordingly, Section 17 of FOISA (information not held) applies to data on departmental
teaching requirements for secondary schools during school sessions 2014/15 and 2015/16.
In respect of data for 2016/17, I can advise you that this information is not centrally
recorded by the Council as stated above. Accordingly, Section 17 of FOISA (information
not held) applies to this part of your request. I can, however, provide information from the
annual teacher census which records the staffing compliment for each secondary school in
line with their respective timetabling requirements as at the date the census was taken
(September). This information is reported to the Scottish Government and is available from
their website:
•
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcenssuppdata
In order to gather information on teaching requirements per school as requested, the
Council would be required to instruct its 17 secondary schools to undertake a task. Each
school will calculate their respective requirements depending on the following factors:
• The number of classes offered in each subject in accordance with national agreement
on class size maximums (for science subjects i.e. this is 20 pupils per class).
• The number of subjects offered at award level (this ranges from 6 to 8 as determined by
individual schools).
• The number of periods offered per subject (dependent on the above).
• Requirements based on minimum staffing to cover the school timetable or staffing
allocation as determined by the Head Teacher.
The Council will not deal with your request in relation to information that it holds because, if
it did so, it would incur excessive costs. These costs relate to locating, retrieving and
providing the requested information to you. Please refer to the exempt information text
below for full details of the exemption.
c. Please breakdown this FTE teaching requirement per science subject (i.e. Chemistry,
Physics & biology and any other general science subject for S1 & S2.
Please refer to our response to Question 2b.
3
d. Please breakdown this FTE teaching requirement per science subject (i.e. Chemistry,
Physics & biology and any other general science subject for S3, S4, S5, S6.
Please refer to our response to Question 2b.
e. Please supply a breakdown of any FTE teaching shortages in each department.
Please disregard staff that fill in or cover classes but do not have a specific teaching
qualification in the subject they are filling in or covering for.
I understand the timescale for this request to be that of requests 1 and 2, I can advise you
that information on departmental vacancies changes constantly and is not held on a
historical basis. Accordingly, Section 17 of FOISA (information not held) applies to data on
departmental vacancies for secondary schools during school sessions 2014/15 and
2015/16. In respect of data for 2016/17, I can advise you that one vacancy has been
advertised for a teacher of Chemistry, however, the Council has no current vacancies for
science subjects.
The Council has interpreted the term “shortages” to relate to vacant posts and long term or
short term absence due to illness, maternity/paternity leave or staff absence for other
reasons. This information changes on a daily basis and is not held historically by the
Council or within individual schools. In order to gather information on staff shortages for
individual schools per subject as a snapshot in time i.e. the current position, each school
would be required to undertake an administrative task to determine the staffing position for
each subject on the day the task was undertaken.
The Council will not deal with your request in relation to information that it holds because, if
it did so, it would incur excessive costs. These costs relate to locating, retrieving and
providing the requested information to you. Please refer to the exempt information text
below for full details of the exemption.
Exempt information
Excessive Cost Refusal in terms of section 12 of FOISA In order to gather the information requested in Questions 2b, 2c, 2d and 2e, the Council would be
required to instruct its 17 secondary schools to undertake a large administrative task.
How the costs are calculated
The Council has estimated the time taken to undertake each task and this has been broken down
on the attached Cost Refusal Note.
As it would cost the Council over £600 to deal with your request, it does not have to give the
information to you. Accordingly, the Council is refusing this part of your request.
Request for Review
The Council has an internal panel (the review panel) to deal with complaints from people who are
not happy about the way that their request has been dealt with. Staff not involved in the original
decision will handle any review. If you want to complain about how we have handled your request
for information, you can ask the review panel to reassess our actions. Please note that if you wish
to complain, you must do so by 19 April 2017
. In requesting a review, it would be helpful if you
could quote the reference number found at the top of this letter and state the matter which has
given rise to your dissatisfaction. You should send your request for a review to:
• Mr. W. Dunn, Information Compliance Manager, Finance and Corporate Resources, Floor 13,
Council Offices, Almada Street, Hamilton, ML3 0AA.
Alternatively, you can request a review at
xxx.xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx. Please note that the review panel can only assess the way we have handled requests for
information. It cannot consider complaints about delivery of a service or any decisions made by the
Council or its authorised employees. If your complaint relates to one of these matters, you should
contact the Resource responsible.
4
Should you not be satisfied with the outcome of our review, you will then have the right to appeal to
the Scottish Information Commissioner. The Commissioner will decide whether your request has
been dealt with properly, in accordance with the Act. The Commissioner’s contact details are as
follows:
• Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle, Doubledykes Road, St Andrews, Fife
KY16 9DS; Telephone: 01334 464610; Fax: 01334 464611;
e-mail:
xxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxx
For further details, please see the Commissioner’s website at
www.itspublicknowledge.info. Yours sincerely
Des Dickson
Head of Education (East Kilbride)
5
Excessive cost refusal note
Requests for Information - FOISA
Request Reference Number:
Estimated Costs Calculation
EDU-FOI-2017-23a
Staff type (e.g. Post
Time
Rate
Total
Staff costs
Title / Spinal Point)
Task required
(hours) £
£
Question 2b Details of FTE teaching requirements
Senior management
per department - estimated at 30mins per school x
team member
17 secondary schools = 8.5hrs
8.5
15 127.50
Question 2c Breakdown of FTE teaching
requirements per science subject per pupil stage
Senior management
S1 and S2 - estimated at 40mins per school x 17
team member
secondary schools = 8.5hrs
12
15 180.00
Question 2d Breakdown of FTE teaching
requirements per science subject per pupil stage
Senior management
S3, S4, S5 and S6 - estimated at 1hr per school x
team member
17 secondary schools = 17hrs
17
15 180.00
Question 2e Breakdown of FTE teaching
shortages in each department - estimated at 40
Senior management
minutes per school x 17 secondary schools =
team member
12hrs
12
15 180.00
Staff cost total
£667.50 A
Non-staff costs
Detail
Cost
1
Non-staff cost total
£0.00 B
Total Estimated Cost
(A + B)
£667.50
Document Outline