Publication - FOI/EIR release

Visit Scotland board members engagement and costs incurred from 2014: FOI release

Published: 6 December 2021
Directorate: Economic Development Directorate
Topic: Economy, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202100244891
Date received: 5 October 2021
Date responded: 12 November 2021

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

Information requested

1. Total costs incurred by VisitScotland from 2014 to the present day. This includes all secretariat staffing costs, daily board member fees and expenses, events, publications and office-running costs.

2. I would also like a record of all engagement between board members and Scottish Government ministers and Cabinet Secretaries from 2014 to the present day.

We required clarification in order to identify information within the scope of your request. You responded with the following:

I can confirm that I am requesting any written correspondence between board members in their capacity as board members and a member of the Scottish Government, as well as minutes of any meetings where Scottish Cabinet Secretaries or Ministers were present.

Response

1. Board member remuneration costs are published within Visit Scotland’s annual statement of accounts. The accounts for each year can be found here:

Our Annual Performance Report | VisitScotland.org

There is a PDF for each year under the tab Annual Reports and Accounts 2013-2020, and a table setting out Board member remuneration, is includes in the Remuneration and Staff Report section.

Other costs - secretariat staffing costs, expenses, events, publications and office-running costs, are contain within Visit Scotland’s overall operational costs.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

With regard to information for the current year, we are unable to provide this as this information is not currently held. As such, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold this information that would fall within the scope of your request. This information will be published, via the same publication route as earlier years, in due course.

2. We have conducted a search of our systems and have identified material that is within scope of your request. These are included as separate documents in the response email.

Certain information has been redacted under a section of FOISA. Further information regarding this section can be found in the Annex of this letter.

All minutes of Visit Scotland board meetings can be found online here: VisitScotland Board Meeting Minutes.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

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.