Social Security Scotland - current staff vacancy rate: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for the current staff vacancy rate at Social Security Scotland (both numerically and percentage where possible).

Where possible, can this vacancy rate be established against, both:

a) what staff levels the agency will need when fully operational
b) what staff levels the agency currently needs to be at full capacity.

Response

We are able to provide some of the information you have requested.

In the absence of a standard definition for vacancy rate, the percentage of vacant positions has been calculated for this response by comparing the number of budgeted vacancies against the actual number of occupied posts.

There is no standard way of measuring vacancy rates, therefore, the figures provided in this response may not be comparable with figures provided by other areas of the Scottish Government. At the end of July 2019, 98.6% of roles we had budgeted for were filled, resulting in a vacancy rate of 1.4%. This equates to 6.6 Full Time Equivalent vacancies unoccupied.

Reasons for not providing information - Annex
The Scottish Government does not have the information

Section 17(1) of FOISA (information not held) requires the Scottish Government to notify you if it does not have the information you requested in part ‘a’ and ‘b’ of your question. The second part of your question (part ‘a’ and ‘b’) are not possible to answer, as the vacancy rate is calculated against posts where budgetary authority has been given to recruit and your question relates to recruitment out of the current financial reporting period. Therefore, Social Security Scotland does not have this information.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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.