Microsoft change to licensing rules: FOI release

Information requested

1. Please confirm on what specific date the Scottish Government was made aware of the potential issues that may arise in schools due to Microsoft changing its licensing rules, meaning accessing Microsoft Word and Powerpoint offline through Glow may cease to be an option for teachers and pupils.

2. Please provide me with a copy of any correspondence or meeting minutes on this date where the Government was made aware.

3. Please provide me with a copy of any correspondence, meeting minutes, or WhatsApp’s about the issue mentioned in question 1, between the Scottish Government and a) Education Scotland, b) Councils, and c) the EIS from August 2023 and July 2024.

4. Please provide with a copy of any internal correspondence and WhatsApp’s about this matter between August 2023 and July 2024.

Response

1. Please confirm on what specific date the Scottish Government was made aware of the potential issues that may arise in schools due to Microsoft changing its licensing rules, meaning accessing Microsoft Word and Powerpoint offline through Glow may cease to be an option for teachers and pupils.

The Scottish Government were first made aware of the changes to Microsoft licensing on 1 August 2023 via Microsoft Blog.

Whilst Glow is funded by the Scottish Government, Glow is delivered and managed by Education Scotland via Local Authorities.

Because local authorities are ultimately responsible for education, including decisions around which technologies to deploy to what effect, it is worth stating that Education Scotland has no direct relationship with Glow users in local authorities (primarily learners, teachers and other school staff) – that responsibility for this lies with local authorities themselves, as does responsibility to assess the local impact of any change.

However, Education Scotland does engage with local authorities ‘Glow Key Contacts’ to ensure they are acting in accordance with their responsibilities. We are aware that Education Scotland did make key contacts aware of this issue on a regular basis from as early as August 2023 when Microsoft announced a number of changes to their free licence offers.

2. Please provide me with a copy of any correspondence or meeting minutes on this date where the Government was made aware.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

3. Please provide me with a copy of any correspondence, meeting minutes, or WhatsApp’s about the issue mentioned in question 1, between the Scottish Government and a) Education Scotland, b) Councils, and c) the EIS from August 2023 and July 2024.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested in the form of pdf powerpoint slides from Glow Key Contact meetings. Glow Key Contact meetings are managed by Education Scotland. Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance some information has been redacted because the remainder of the information in that document does not fall within the scope of the request. Also, some redacted information relates to Personal info exemption * s.38(1)(a). To note there are no formal minutes produced from Glow Key Contact meetings.

4. Please provide with a copy of any internal correspondence and WhatsApp’s about this matter between August 2023 and July 2024.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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 202400422554 - Information Released - Annex

File type

73 page PDF

File size

1.1 MB