Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what safeguards are used in the Working Lives of Teachers and Leaders survey to protect respondents' confidentiality when collecting information on mental and physical health conditions; and what response rates those questions receive.

The working lives of teachers and leaders (WLTL) survey is conducted by independent research contractors on behalf of the department, in strict accordance with the Market Research Society Code of Conduct. Any information provided by participants through the survey is handled securely and in line with the UK Data Protection Act and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The full privacy notice for the current WLTL survey is available at: https://www.workinglivesofteachers.com/privacy-policy/.

Participation in the WLTL survey is voluntary. For the majority of questions participants are asked to select an option, but those options include ‘don’t know’ and ‘prefer not to say’ where questions might be considered sensitive.

In the most recently published WLTL survey, 98% of participants responded to the question ‘Do you have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses lasting or expected to last 12 months or more?’ with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response, and 2% responded ‘prefer not to say’. Further information, including details of the questionnaire, the full research report and data tables, is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-lives-of-teachers-and-leaders-wave-4.