FOI 25-420 NQP intake from Scotland's 5 Uni's
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 25-420 NQP intake from Scotland's 5 Uni's
- Request Date
- 25 Oct 2025
- Response Date
- 01 Oct 2025
- Information Requested
Please confirm how many vacancies there are currently in the Scottish Ambulance Service?
Please also confirm how many paramedics employed by the Scottish Ambulance Service in each of the last 5 years were Scottish funded graduates who received their degree from one of Scotland's 5 universities?
With regard to the latter question, as well as providing the number of paramedics, please also confirm the proportion/percentage of graduates employed with a degree from one of Scotland's 5 universities of the overall number employed.
- Response
All current vacancies for the Scottish Ambulance Service can be found here - NHS Scotland | Jobs | Search here for your perfect career - Jobs Page
Following a thorough review, the Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold the requested information in a format that allows for straightforward extraction or reporting; it is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002, as information is not held.
While it is possible that relevant details may exist within individual personnel records, the Service does not maintain a centralised dataset that identifies whether a paramedic is a Newly Qualified Paramedic (NQP), whether their qualification was obtained through Scottish Government funding, or the specific university from which their degree was awarded. Determining this would require a manual review of each individual file for all paramedics recruited over the past five years, which would constitute the creation of new information and analysis beyond the scope of FOISA.
Please note that FOISA does not oblige public authorities to create new information or undertake collation or analysis that is not already held in recorded form.
Furthermore, the Scottish Ambulance Service does not hold information on the number of NQP’s who have graduated, this could be requested from the Universities.
