Costs incurred by the Scottish Advisory Commission on Distinction Awards (SACDA) from 2014: FOI release

Information requested

1) Total costs incurred by the Scottish Advisory Commission on Distinction Awards (SACDA) from 2014 to the present day. This includes all secretariat staffing costs, daily commissioner fees and expenses, events, publications and office-running costs.

2) Record of all engagement between commissioners and Scottish Government Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries from 2014 to the present day.

Response

1) The Scottish Government provides National Services Scotland (NSS) with a core budget each year. As part of this funding they administer SACDA on our behalf.

Based on the Service Level Agreements which were agreed for the delivery of SACDA, spend of £729,379 was anticipated by NSS during the period of 2014/15 to 2020/21, this is broken down per year in the table below. This funding was to cover costs relating to: salaries, members fees & travel, IT hosting & maintenance, facilities & accommodation costs, and additional associated costs.

It is important to note as NSS are responsible for management of their own budget, actual costs incurred may vary from year to year and if you would like a detailed breakdown you will need to approach NSS for this information via: nss.committee@nhs.scot.

Annual Scottish Government SACDA Funding Award

Reporting Year	Budget
2014/2015	£118,801
2015/2016	£101,202
2016/2017	£96,142
2017/2018	£91,335
2018/2019	£86,768
2019/2020	£82,430
2020/2021	£78,308
2021/2022	£74,393
Total	£729,379

2) We have conducted an exhaustive search for any engagement between commissioners and Scottish Government Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries from 2014 to the present day and no record of any engagements can be found. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

You may wish to note details of all Ministerial engagements and expenses are proactively published by the Scottish Government, including the costs of travel and accommodation. The information can be accessed at the link between 2016 – 2021: Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) and at this link from 2014-2016 Ministerial Engagements (webarchive.org.uk).

About FOI

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