Scottish Government and public bodies (including NHS healthcare organisations) corporate function data, 2023-24 and 2024-25

Annex B: Question Guidance

Below is the question guidance as it was given to organisations when they were commissioned for data. Please note that the guidance has been slightly adapted for clarity in places from that issued to public bodies for this publication and it should be noted that NHS healthcare organisations were asked a reduced set of questions. For details, see Annex B in the NHS healthcare organisations supporting document.

Function Costs

This section contains the question guidance relating to cost of function questions

Grand Total Function Cost (£)

This figure is the overall total of running the function, and is the sum of paybill, and all other non-paybill costs provide. This figure will therefore include full staff costs for the function (incl. direct wages and salaries, pensions contributions, and NI contributions). This figure also includes purchases of goods and services used for delivering the function, incl. non-payroll costs (contingent labour, consultancy and outsourcing spend) as well as office supplies and IT costs (e.g. HR or financial management software).

Paybill Cost: Total (£)

This figure captures staff costs for the Payroll FTE working in the function (including direct wages and salaries, pensions contributions, and NI contributions).

Non-Paybill Cost: Direct Costs (£)

This figure captures the non-pay  costs of directly employed FTE running the function. This excludes generic IT, but includes specialised IT costs required by the function for them to carry out their work (e.g. HR or financial management software)

Non-Paybill Cost: Contingent Labour Costs (£)

By Contingent Labour we refer to those individuals (contractors) who have been hired on a temporary basis (though this can be for a longer period) to complete specific tasks or services under a 'Statement of Work'. Contingent Labour is distinct from consultancy as the organisation is paying for an individual to carry out and complete tasks rather than an organisation to deliver a specific deliverable. This figure should include individuals within the Function or individuals carrying out activities usually done by the Function.

Non-Paybill Cost: Consultancy Costs (£)

By Consultancy spend we mean the cost of securing external specialist advice in a particular field. This should include any spend that has been paid to an external partner to access advice or the implementation of new business processes or technologies.

Non-Paybill Cost: Outsourcing Costs (£)

We define outsourcing as referring to any function / sub functional activity that is wholly delivered by private sector organisations e.g. payroll, IT service desk.

Non-Paybill Cost: Central Function Invoiced Costs (£)

Spend by organisation arising from acquiring specialist service support, where the service is based in the centre.

Non-Paybill Cost: Shared Services Costs (£)

Shared Services which are provided by a specialist service team, to departments or organisations. In most instances, we expect that this field will capture the recharge costs to organisations, who utilise the services of Scottish Government's Shared Service.

Non-Paybill Cost: Other Costs (£)

This section should be used only for costs that do not fit the above functional non-pay categories

Shared Services Recharge (£)

The cost of running the function that is attributable to providing a the corporate service to other organisations. This is effectively the recharge rate / recovery cost you would charge them for obtaining your function’s services.

Function FTE

This section contains the question guidance relating to staff FTE of function questions.

Function FTE (end FY)

The number of functional staff in post (expressed as FTE), excluding vacancies and contingent labour. Function definitions are used when deciding which staff belong to which function (if any). Where functions are merged, public bodies were asked to apportion staff based on FTE spent on each role. If this is not feasible, FTE was apportioned FTE based on primary role.

Function FTE: Contingent Labour

By Contingent Labour we refer to those individuals (contractors) who have been hired on a temporary basis (though this can be for a longer period) to complete specific tasks or services under a 'Statement of Work'. Contingent Labour is distinct from consultancy as the organisation is paying for an individual to carry out and complete tasks rather than an organisation to deliver a specific deliverable. This figure should include individuals within the Function or carrying out activities usually done by the Function.

Managed Costs

This section contains the question guidance relating to costs managed by the function.

Funding Passed to Public/Private/Third Sector Organisations and Citizens (£)

The purpose of these questions is to understand the proportion of budgets that go from public bodies to public/private/third sector organisations and citizens, OTHER THAN for the provision of goods or services. For clarification, the following should be included:

• Grant payments
• Grant-in-aid payments.

The following should be excluded:

• Procurement spend to support the body’s operational/corporate functions
• Repayable loans
• Payments in kind (e.g. offer of reduced rent to a community organisation for use of a body's asset)
• Non-financial transfers (e.g. assets, staff)
• Funds channelled to other organisations, as part of partnership or collaborative arrangements in which the body is involved (e.g. community planning)

Learning & Development Spend Managed by HR Function

Total spend on training and  development courses managed by HR on behalf of the organisation.

Third Party Spend: Total

Third party spend refers to the total spend on goods and services provided by external suppliers within the organisation. It is the total annual value of payments (excluding VAT) made to third party suppliers for purchase of goods and services, including payments to public sector organisations for direct provision of goods or services. This figure should be the same as data entered for gross current and capital purchases of goods and services onto OSCAR.

Third party spend includes:

• goods, such as office supplies and ICT equipment
• services, such as facilities management, professional services, travel and subsistence
• works, such as construction 
• utilities, energy and waste.

Third party spend excludes payroll costs, non-cash expenditure (e.g. depreciation), grants and benefit payments, accruals and receipts, but includes spending on non-payroll staff, capital expenditure and programme spend on commodities and services.

Third Party Spend: Delivered via Collaborative Public Sector Frameworks

The total value of third party spend in FY that was managed through Category A (Scottish Government), Category B (via Centre of Expertise) or other equivalent public sector frameworks (such as Crown Commercial Services).

External Communications Spend

This refers to the spend attributable to external, public facing campaigns. This is to gauge the scale of external facing priorities of the function.

Annual Estate Running Costs: Total 

This is the annual net cost of running properties, including rent, business rates, service charges, utilities (gas, electricity, water, sewage), soft facilities management (e.g. cleaning, catering etc), hard facilities management (e.g. repairs, maintenance etc), and security costs. The figure provided should be the sum of annual running costs for all locations of the entire organisation.

Annual Estate Runnng Costs: Office

This is the annual net cost of running OFFICE properties (those classified as primarily an office space, as defined in question P3), including rent, business rates, service charges, utilities (gas, electricity, water, sewage), soft facilities management (e.g. cleaning, catering etc), hard facilities management (e.g. repairs, maintenance etc), and security costs. The figure provided should be the sum of annual running costs for all locations of the entire organisation that are used as offices. Not included are the cost of non-office locations such as warehouses or museum exhibition spaces, or separate properties that house laboratories.

Annual Estate Running Costs Recovered

These are the costs recovered from subletting part of the organisation's estate. The total of this value plus P1a will equal a gross estate running cost which the organisation manages.

Running and Improving IT & Digital Estate Costs

This figure captures the resources required to maintain digital and IT infrastructure across the entire organisation (be this internal system or public facing services). This figure should include all expenditure on ICT / digital infrastructure and support activities (such as installation, repairs and maintenance) used in the day-to-day running of the organisation, including software and hardware, hosting, telecoms, hosting, and networking. This should exclude the cost of digital transformation projects but include minor service improvement costs. Amortisation and depreciation are not required. Please enter data in units of £.

Digital Transformation Costs

Comparing the costs between public bodies can be difficult, but we are interested to understand this landscape. If the spend which is about changing what the service is or how it fundamentally operates, captured it here. Digital Transformation costs are those that deliver a step-change in capability or fundamentally redesign, replace, or re-platform a service. Transformation is about moving to a materially new way of meeting user needs, often linked to strategic change. Examples include:

• Migrating from a legacy platform to a cloud-native solution.
• Replacing an existing system with a modern digital service.
• Major redesign of the service journey or operating model.
• Delivering new services where none previously existed.
• Large-scale modernisation to align with organisational TOM (Target Operating Model) or policy reform.

Function Variables

This section contains the question guidance relating to function specific questions.

HR staff with CIPD membership (FTE)

Number of Function FTE with Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD) membership at Foundation, Associate or Chartered (Membership and Fellowship) grade.

Commercial staff with relevant Professional Qualifications (FTE)

Number of staff (FTE) working in the organisation with a professionally recognised procurement qualification at any Level, including those part qualified. ​​ Recognised qualifications include those from Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) or equivalents, and Civil Service qualifications accredited by the Government Commercial Function.