Staff employed in communications 2015 to 2017: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01143
Date received: 11 April 2018
Date responded: 9 May 2018

Information requested

1. The number of full time press office/news desk/media relations staff employed by the Scottish Government during the years 2015, 2016 and 2017.

2. The total wage bill of the above staff, broken down by year.

3. The number of contracts awarded to external public relations/marketing companies/individuals by the Scottish Government, broken down by date, company/individual, purpose of contract, length of contract and value of contract.

Response

1. The number of full time press office/news desk/media relations staff employed by the Scottish Government over the years in question is available at Scottish Government website: /publications/foi-18-00939/

Numbers of FTE staff vary throughout the financial year and the figures represent staff numbers on just one day of each year, March 31st. This means that these figures are a 'snapshot': they do not represent either a total number or average number of staff employed in the year. Figures for 2017-18 are still being processed and will be available within 12 weeks. These figures are based on a financial year, as opposed to calendar year in your request.

2. The cost of frontline communications staff/press officers in the last three years to the most recent financial year is available at Scottish Government website: /publications/cost-of-frontline-communications-staff/

We intend to publish the costs for 2017-18 on the Scottish Government website within 12 weeks.

3. The number of contracts awarded to external public relations/ marketing companies/ individuals by the Scottish Government, broken down by date, company/ individual, purpose of contract, length of contract and value of contract. While you have not specified a time period, we have taken this from Q1 for the period covering 2015-2017:

Contract	Agency	Date Awarded	Contract Value
Tram Inquiry - PR	3x1	30-Jan-15	£50,000
Safer Roads – PR	Smarts	10-Jun-15	£125,000
Safer Communities - PR	Consolidated	15-Jun-15	£150,000
International - Digital	Whitespace	07-Sep-15	£150,000
Healthier – Digital	Union	09-Sep-15	£300,000
Safer Marketing Cluster - Research	TNS	04-Nov-15	£350,000
Smarter Cluster - Research	TNS	30-Nov-15	£200,000
Media Planning, Buying and Associated Services - Wealthier & Fairer, Safer, International	Republic of Media	10-Feb-16	£2,500,000
Parental Audience - Research	TNS	15-Feb-16	£100,000
Media Planning, Buying and Associated Services - Healthier, Greener, Smarter	Carat	28-Apr-16	£4,600,000
Smarter Wealthier & Fairer 2016 - PR	BIG	19-May-16	£200,000
Healthier Scotland 2016 - PR	Consolidated	01-Jun-16	£300,000
Greener 2016 - Digital	Whitespace	03-Jun-16	£250,000
Health Improvement 2016 - Advertising	Story	08-Jun-16	£600,000
Smarter Wealthier & Fairer 2016 - Advertising	The Gate	28-Jun-16	£500,000
Safer 2016 - Digital	The Gate	21-Jul-16	£450,000
Safer 2016 - Advertising	Leith	24-Jul-16	£650,000
Healthier Scotland 2016 - Field	Kommando	03-Aug-16	£200,000
Smarter 2016 - Digital	The Gate	13-Aug-16	£500,000
Healthier Scotland 2016 - Partnerships	Union	04-Sep-16	£250,000
CEHP 2016 - Advertising	Leith	07-Sep-16	£750,000
Parental Audience - Advertising	Union	29-Sep-16	£100,000
Parental Audience - Digital	Union	06-Oct-16	£50,000
International - Research	TNS	25-May-17	£20,000
International – PR
	3x1	13-Sep-17	£175,000
Parental Audience - PR	Stripe	14-Sep-17	£80,000
Parental Audience - Creative Services	Union	15-Sep-17	£600,000
Parental Audience - Digital	Union	28-Sep-17	£600,000
WW100 – PR	Smarts	03-Oct-17	£60,000
Migration – PR	Pagoda	16-Nov-17	£50,000
Contract Value total:			£14,910,000

For further information on what these contracts were utilised for, please consult the following:

/publications/foi-17-01529/

You asked for "The number of contracts awarded to external public relations/marketing companies/individuals by the Scottish Government" as a whole.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government. It may help if I explain that we file our information according to the subject matter, not by reference to the names of organisations with whom we have corresponded. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you could specify the subject matter(s) of the correspondence you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at:

http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx

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