Engagement and total cost incurred by Skills Development Scotland: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for the total costs incurred by Skills Development Scotland from 2014 to the present day. This includes all secretariat staffing costs, daily board member fees and expenses, events, publications and office-running costs.

You also asked for a record of all engagement between board members and Scottish Government ministers and Cabinet Secretaries from 2014 to the present day.

Response

Attached is a copy of most of the information you requested. 

The answer to your question is:

The table below show the total costs incurred by Skills Development Scotland from 2014 to the present day:

Year	Total costs incurred by Skills Development Scotland	Published accounts
2014/15	£212,851,000	https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/40846/sds‐signed‐accounts‐31‐march‐2015.pdf
2015/16	£223,498,000	https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/42859/annual‐report‐and‐financial‐statements‐2015‐16‐searchable‐version.pdf
2016/17	£211,359,000	https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/44121/sds‐accounts‐31‐march‐2017‐signed.pdf
2017/18	£227,976,000	https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/45185/sds‐group‐accounts‐year‐ended‐31‐march‐2018‐signed.pdf
2018/19	£249,418,000	https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/46378/annual‐report‐and‐financial‐statements‐2018‐19‐signed‐version.pdf
2019/20	£263,880,000	https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/47388/sds‐group‐accounts‐year‐ended‐31‐march‐2020‐signed.pdf
2020/21	N/A*	N/A*
2021/22 (to 30/09/21)	£104,948,000**	N/A

*Accounts for 2020/21 are due to be published within 12 weeks of the original request so are exempt under section 27(1) of FOISA.
**Spend to end of September 2021 for financial year 2021/22 is taken from budget monitoring records held by the Scottish Government and therefore provides a ‘point in time’ figure. Accounts for 2021/22 are not yet published and will be subject to audit. Total costs incurred by SDS for 2020-2021 may vary as and when accounts are published.

The table attached details all engagement between Skills Development Scotland board members and Scottish Government Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries from 2014 to the present day.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption under section 27(1) (Informationintended for future publication) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why that exemption(s) applies are explained in the Annex.

Annex A
An exemption applies

Section 27(1) – information intended for future publication
An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested because Skills Development Scotland intend to publish that information (their 2020-2021 annual accounts) within 12 weeks of the date of your request. We consider that it is reasonable to withhold the information until that date, rather than release some of this routinely published information before the planned publication date.

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.

FOI202100244868 - Information released

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6 page PDF

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499.4 kB