Information regarding Council of Economic Advisers: FOI review

Information requested

Your request, reference 202100222880
1. All the incurred costs by the Council of Economic Advisers since the Council’s initiation in 2007 to the present date, with a full breakdown of those costs.

2. A full membership list of Council members between 2007 and the present date.

3. A list of all Council engagements with Scottish Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries between 2007 and the present date.

Your review request, reference 202100235314
I am writing to submit a Freedom of Information Request regarding the Council of Economic Advisers. I would like to request a breakdown of the full costs incurred by the Council of Economic Advisers from its inception to the present day.

I have already asked for this information but was directed to the Disclosures page which only contained costs around travel, accommodation, venue hire and hospitality that contributed to meetings. I would like information on staffing secretariat costs for the meetings, as well as any costs surrounding publications from the CEA.

Response

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed, with modifications.

While the original response was correct to direct you the disclosures relating to costs around travel, accommodation, venue hire and hospitality, it should also have provided information related to publications. I have provided this breakdown in the table below.

Year	Publication costs
2014-15	£3,368.74
2015-16	£378.80
2016-17	£484.43
2018-19	£477.46

A further breakdown of these costs is available for publications in the years 2015-16 and 2016-17 only.

Item	2015-16	2016-17
Artwork	£76.17	£104.91
Project management	£49.95	£49.95
Publishing services	£29.00	£29.00
Web conversion	£223.68	£300.57
Total	£378.80	£484.40

Regarding your query relating to costs associated with secretariat staffing, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we cannot do so. The reason for this is that, in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not recorded because there is no business need to do this.

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.