Costs incurred for establishment/running of Public Health Reform programme: FOI release

Information requested

1.     Full costs incurred to date in relation to the establishment and running of Public Health Reform, the Public Health Oversight Board, Public Health Scotland and associated commissions.
2.     Full details of any training and team-bonding events held by those involved in these bodies and associated groups in the last year.
3.     Full costs, details and copies of electronic communications between members of these bodies in relation to such an event at Edinburgh Zoo, attended by the Protecting Health commission group, last December.

Response

In relation to your question one, none of the entities you reference are existing public bodies, so we have instead set out the spend for the whole reform programme since its creation in June 2017.  Public Health Scotland will not have legal personality until 1 April 2020 so it has not yet incurred any expenditure.  The reform programme itself has incurred the following direct expenditure, with the majority of its total spend relating to multi-disciplinary staff costs associated with designing the policy, blueprint, commissions and Target Operating Model for Public Health Scotland. 

The tables below show the requested expenditure for the financial years 2017/18 and 2018/19.  They detail the relevant amounts of the total reform programme spend which were allocated to the running of the Public Health Reform Oversight Board:

Expenditure for 17/18	Amount
Public Health Oversight Board spend	£1036
Programme total for Year	£115,000

 

Expenditure for 18/19	Amount
Public Health Oversight Board spend	£1130
Programme total for Year	£1,548,000

 In relation to your question two, we do not have any recorded information regarding any training and team bonding events that were directly funded by the Scottish Government.  This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.  You may wish to contact NHS National Services Scotland for more information.  Information on how to submit an FOI request to NSS is available at https://nhsnss.org/how-nss-works/freedom-of-information/.

In relation to your question three, we understand that there was an event held at Edinburgh Zoo on 21 and 22 August 2018 (not December). This Protecting Health event was held at Edinburgh Zoo by NHS National Services Scotland. However, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested regarding costs, details and electronic communications regarding this event.  This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.  Again, NHS National Services Scotland should be able to provide you with further information regarding the costs incurred and related electronic communications so you may wish to contact them.

 

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