SG lost or broken electrical equipment and overpayments: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for the following information:

1. How much has been overpaid (Overpayments made to staff who had left Scottish Government employment where it was decided that it would not be cost effective to continue recovery action) in financial years 2017-18 and 2018-19 to date and how many cases did this involve/
2. I would like updated figures for 2017-18 and 2018-19 related to the linked FOI request regarding lost electronics.

Response

1. Overpayments

While the Scottish Government make every effort to avoid overpayments, when they do occur, we follow the procedures for the recovery of overpayments as set out in the Scottish Public Finance Manual. 

It is only in exceptional circumstances that we do not pursue the recovery and proceed to write off.

The table below provides details of the recorded overpayments written off as it was not cost effective to pursue recovery, where the employee has left the employment of the Scottish Government, in the years specified. 

Financial Year	Number of Cases	Total write off
2017-2018	3	£3,386.10
2018-2019	4	£876.19
2019 - 30 September	1	£7.71

2. IT Equipment

The table below provides a breakdown of some of the information you request regarding devices which have been lost or misplaced. This is shown for Scottish Government staff. An estimated value for the items lost is included, based on the cost of a brand new replacement as opposed to the actual depreciated value of the item at the time of its loss.  Scottish Government do not record the value of lost assets, we purely record details of the incident and take actions to remotely wipe and/or disable the device.

Robust procedures and guidelines are in place to help secure information outside the office. Scottish Government laptop and tablet devices are password protected for each individual user and hard-disk drives are protected by encryption software.

As a result of these measures which protect the information on devices, official data could not be accessed or amended/deleted by any individual without appropriate passwords, encryption or remote id tags.

With regards to laptops, smartphones, and tablets which have been broken in the last three years, this is formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have asked for in this part of your request. The Scottish Government does not keep a record of devices reported as broken, all devices which experience hardware failure are fixed and replaced under the manufacturer's warranty.

Devices Lost	2017/18	2018/19	2019/To Present	Total Cost £ (ext vat)
Laptop	2	1	0	£1,605
Tablet	0	0	0	£0
Mobile Phones	15	3	0	£3,654

Devices Misplaced	2017/18	2018/19	2019/To Present
Laptop	4	1	1
Tablet	0	0	0
Mobile Phones	0	1	0

3. What is the most expensive item lost in each of the last three years?

This is formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have asked for in this part of your request. Scottish Government do not record the value of lost assets, we purely record details of the incident and take actions to remotely wipe and/or disable the device

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.