Information relating to current Chief Inspector of Scottish Fire and Rescue Service: FOI release

Information requested

Information relating to the current Chief Inspector of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS), Robert Scott. The request related to Mr Scott's previous employment by HM Fire Service Inspectorate for Scotland as an Associate Inspector.

The specific questions were:

• Confirm the dates of the employment
• The terms and conditions of this employment
• A copy of the advertisement for the role
• A copy of the job description
• The salary for this position
• If appointed for a specific project, please provide information

Response

Robert Scott was employed on a part time fixed term contract as an Associate Inspector from 14 November 2017 to 13 November 2018. The role was filled on a "non-fair and open competition" basis. All Scottish Government recruitment is governed by the Civil Service recruitment Principles which allow for such appointments to be made by exception where either the urgency of the need, the highly specialist skills required or the short duration of the role make a full competition impracticable or disproportionate. In those circumstances, Departments may appoint an individual for up to a maximum of two years, to provide managers with the flexibility to meet the short-term needs of the Civil Service. In this case Mr Scott was appointed without fair and open competition to support the Inspectorate and provide advice on the transformation programme that SFRS was about to embark on as that was his specialist area of expertise. The role was graded at Pay Band C2 and during the period in question the pay range was:

1 August 2016 to 31 July 2017

• £55,928
• £58,694
• £61,459
• £64,225
• £66,990

1 August 2017 to 31 July 2018

• £56,488
• £59,281
• £62,074
• £64,868
• £67,660

I am unable to supply the information that you have requested on the terms and conditions and personal salary for the role because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to the information requested as it is personal data of a third party, i.e. you have asked for details of a specific individuals’ employment contract and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have an advertisement or a job description. This is because the role was not openly advertised and no advertisement exists. Similarly, given the passage of time, no job description exists. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. However I can tell you that this was a Civil Service Pay Band C2 post and involved carrying out detailed inspection work on behalf of Her Majesty’s Fire Service Inspectorate (HMFSI) and providing advice and support to Scottish Government Ministers and officials.

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.