Education Scotland Agency Staff Networks: FOI release

Information requested

This is an information request relating to staff networks.

Please include the following information for the following years, 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23:

• A list of all the staff networks at the organisation.
• Whether each network receives internal funding and, if so, how much (please express annually for the last four financial years).
• How much FTE equivalent staff time each network is entitled to. For example, a staff network may have a chair who’s entitled to spend 10% of their working hours devoted to the network (please express annually for the last three financial years).
• A list of events that each network has held in this financial year so far (April to the present day), including the title of the event, information on any guest speakers and the time of the event.

Response

Please find below information on Education Scotland’s staff networks.

Equalities Staff Network

• This started in August 2023.
• It receives no funding and no specific staff time is allocated to it.
• There are monthly meetings with members.
• There haven’t been any external guests joining as our professional learning has been facilitated by members themselves.

Mental Health and Wellbeing Network

• This was established in FY2018/19 with a staff bulletin promoting the network in October 2018.
• It received no funding and no specific staff time was allocated to it.
• There were no external guest speakers.
• The network was most active in FY2018/19 with meetings every six weeks, on into 2019/20 up to lockdown. The group met a few times during lockdown, but there began to be so much going on to support mental health it was felt that the network and its purpose was overtaken. There have been no meetings since then.

Please note that there are no staff networks managed or supported by Digital within Education Scotland and we do not receive any funding to support any.

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.