Public Sector staff on furlough: FOI release

Information requested

The number of public sector staff on furlough due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Response

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is a UK wide scheme, which is managed by the UK Government. Accountable Officers and those with organisational budget accountability are ultimately responsible for the decision to claim through the scheme. Only organisations that are not fully funded by public grants can consider accessing the scheme. However public bodies which rely extensively on commercial income can apply to access it. 

Public Bodies which are fully funded from the public purse are not expected to furlough staff. Where staff in such public bodies are not able to carry out their usual work, employers should be making every effort to redeploy staff to assist with the Coronavirus response or maintain essential services, either within that organisation or to another part of the public sector.

Public Bodies which are only part funded from the public purse and which have lost some or all income from other sources as a result of the impact of Coronavirus and would otherwise not have sufficient funding to pay all staff can consider furloughing staff and claiming a Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) grant from HMRC. 

Those Public Sector organisations which are eligible to claim under the CJRS have been advised to claim only when absolutely necessary and to ensure that their organisation is not ‘double-funded’, i.e. that they do not receive funding from the CJRS in addition to other funding they receive to cover the same staff costs.

There are a small number of public bodies whose commercial income has reduced to the extent that they no longer have sufficient income to cover all staff costs and are entitled to apply for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). The Scottish Government supports these bodies to furlough staff and claim CJRS, with trade unions fully consulted/engaged. The number of public sector staff which have been placed on furlough through the CJRS is therefore relatively small. 

The table below outlines the figures for the public bodies for which we hold relevant information:

Public Body	Total Staff (FTE)	No of staff FTE to be furloughed
National Galleries of Scotland	450	180
National Museums of Scotland	437	247
Historic Environment Scotland	1474	928
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh	235	120
Registers of Scotland	1049	330
Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Limited (CMSL)	39 Permanent 41 Seasonal	26 Permanent 20 Seasonal
David MacBrayne Ltd	1687	147
Scottish Canals	212	86
Highlands & Islands Airports Ltd	598	102
sportscotland	330	77
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority	158	22

You may be able to access more information by contacting the relevant bodies directly.

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