Expenditure of Education Scotland frontline employees: FOI release

Information requested

1. Can you please set out how many FTE frontline communications staff/press officers there have been for each of the ten years to 2019/20. If an average number cannot be sourced, pick March as a snapshot.

1b. How many FTE frontline communications staff/press officers were there in January (snapshot) 2021.

1c. What was the annual cost of employing those frontline staff in all those years 2009/10 - 2019/20.

2. How many FTE frontline communications staff/press officers have been employed that have been outsourced, In other words, not in-house but external PR/communications supplied by a private company in all those years 2009/10 - 2019/20

2b. How much was spent in those outsourced frontline PR/communications/press office functions, in other words, not in-house but external PR/communications supplied by a private company (as per Q4).

Response

Education Scotland was established on 1 July 2011, therefore we are unable to provide data from before this date.

Staff costs

Total costs for communications/press staff are shown in the table below.

Year	Total
2011-12	£43,668.74
2012-13	£49,423.68
2013-14	£108,180.75
2014-15	£136,175.13
2015-16	£61,564.13
2016-17	£75,354.28
2017-18	£111,171.16
2018-19	£133,886.18
2019-20	£82,996.99

Communications/press staff

Year	No.	Role
2011-12	Two	Head of Comms (20%) and a contracted Press Officer*
2012-13	Two	Head of Comms (20%) and a contracted Press Officer*
2013-14	Two	Head of Comms (20%) and a contracted Press Officer* until a Temp Comms Manager (started in April 2013)
2014-15	Three	Head of Comms (20%), Temp Comms Manager (until March 2015) and Temp Media Officer (started June 2014)
2015-16	Three	Head of Comms (20%), Comms Manager (75%) (started November 2015) and Temp Media Officer (left April 2016)
2016-17	Three	Head of Comms (20%), Comms Manager (75%) and Senior Comms Officer (20%) (started August 2016)
2017-18	Four	Head of Comms (60%), Media Officer (100%), Comms Officer X 2 (Both 20%)
2018-19	Four	Head of Comms (60%) (Post covered by agency staff while Head of Comms was on maternity leave), Media Officer (100%), Comms Officer X 2 (Both 20%).
2019-20	Four	Head of Comms (60%), Media Officer (100%) (started September 2019), Comms Officer X 2 (Both 20%)
January 2021	Four	Head of Comms (60%), Media Officer (100%) Comms Officer X 2 (Both 20%)

*The contracted Press Officer was on a call off procurement contact therefore unable to provide a FTE.

The above costs have been pro-rated based on the approximate time spent by each member of staff.

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