Education Scotland IT training spend from 2021 - 2024: FOI release

Information requested

1. For the Financial years 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 please confirm whether your organisation purchased training in any of the below areas. Please provide a breakdown of the value purchased for each area, the number of people who received that training?

• Agile & Scrum
• Business Analysis
• Data Analytics
• Enterprise Architecture
• Lean/Lean Six Sigma
• Project & Programme Management
• Technical IT Training

2. Specifically focusing on Technical IT Training for the same 3 year period please confirm how much of this training, if any, was in Microsoft products and provide a breakdown in terms of the value purchased, the cost per training and the number of people receiving training in each of the below products?

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Power BI
• Microsoft Teams
• Other Microsoft product

3. What are your organisation's procurement rules around purchasing training and how do these change when certain value thresholds are reached? See examples below.

• Under £5,000 - 1 quote
• Over £5,000 but under £10,000 - 3 quotes required
• Over £10,000 - 5 quotes via an open procurement exercise
• Over £20,000 - full tender exercise

4. Do you have a competency framework in place? If yes, which department manages this. If no, is there a central training function, if yes, where does this report to?

5. Is the expectation that budget will be made available for training 2024/25, if yes what value?

Response

1. Financial Year (FY) 2021-22: Project and Programme Management training:

• Managing Successful programmes, 2 people = £2,325.60
• Prince 2, 1 person = £875.00

There are no other costs in scope of question 1 in relation to FY 2022-23 or FY 2023-24.

2. Financial Year 2023-24:

• Microsoft Power BI, 7 people = £8,050
• Other Microsoft product - MS Project, 4 people = £725.00

There are no other costs in scope of question 2 in relation to FY 2021-22 or FY 2022-23.

3. If a framework contract exists for the required training, that route would be considered in the first instance.

Otherwise:

• Up to £2,500 = 1 quote
• £2,501 up to £10,000 = 3 quotes
• £10,001 and over = tender exercise. Between £10,001 and up to £50,000
• Quick quote facility on Public Contracts Scotland is used. Over £50,000 open procurement exercise.

4. As an executive agency of the Scottish Government (SG), Education Scotland uses the SG Competency Framework Skills for Success and it is centrally managed by SG HR.

All roles in the Digital, Data and Technology profession are aligned to the DDaT Competency Framework.

Digital, Data and Technology profession, skills and capability - Digital - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

5. Education Scotland's detailed internal budgets have not yet been approved.

About FOI

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