Social Security Scotland - temporary staff: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for information confirming a) full details of any contractors and/or consultants that have been hired by Social Security Scotland and b) a breakdown of the cost and justification of hiring each of these since July 2016.

Response

We have provided some of the information that you have requested.

Social Security Scotland was established as an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government on 1st September 2018 therefore no information on temporary or contingent workers exists prior to this date.

For the purposes of this response the word contractors will mean temporary recruitment ‘agency’ or contingency workers, which is consistent with the terms which will be published in our annual report and accounts.

In regards to breakdown of costs for individuals, this is exempt under section 33 (1)(b) Commercial interest and the economy information is exempt information if its disclosure under the Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the commercial interests of any person (including without prejudice to that generally, a Scottish public authority) and under section 38 (1)(b) Personal information, personal data.

Disclosing individual costs or job roles would mean that individuals can be identified by this information as some job roles are specialised and are filled by one contractor and providing the above information could lead to the identity of the individuals.

The information below is for temporary or contingent workers hired by Social Security Scotland from 1st September 2018 up to and including 31st March 2019.

Social Security Scotland have not hired contractors.

Over this period of time, Social Security Scotland employed a total of 44 temporary or contingent workers.

The costs of temporary or contingent workers has been calculated per department rather than individual costs. This has been taken from the total amount paid to recruitment agencies on the Scottish Government framework for contractor recruitment.

The amount includes all invoices paid to recruitment agencies for the contract of staff, but does not include invoices awaiting payment or invoices awaiting allocation to our budget from the Scottish Government

Finance	£252,659
Operations	£47,043
Governance and Strategy	£189,166
Total spend	£488,868

Temporary or contingent workers are hired on an exceptional basis to undertake temporary or specialist roles to fill a short term or immediate requirement until roles can be filled on a permanent basis.
Temporary and Contingency worker costs will be published in our annual report and accounts, due for publication in Autumn 2019.
From 1st September 2018 up to and including 31st March 2019 Social Security Scotland has not hired any consultants and as such have no costs associated with this.

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.