Civil servant wages: FOI release

Information requested

1. How much is the Scottish Government spending on wages of civil servants now, and in each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022? Breakdown of these costs and how many there are employed?

2. How much is the Scottish Government spending on special advisers and press officers now, including how many of each are employed? Breakdown of these costs and also in each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022?

3. How many civil servants are making over £100k a year?-breakdown of who is making this and include the same for each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022?

4. How many Scottish Government staff members have logged into work from abroad in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and could you include a list of where they logged in from?

5. How many Scottish Government employees are currently not paid the national living wage?

Response

1. How much is the Scottish government spending on wages of civil servants now, and in each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022? Breakdown of these costs and how many there are employed?

We have interpreted your request as relating to core Scottish Government, in line with the structuring of consolidated accounts. Therefore, the below response to your question, which covers staffing numbers and wage costs over the period requested, covers Scottish Government Core only.

Staffing numbers for the years requested are published on gov.scot: Public sector employment in Scotland: web tables - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Please see table 5, column E for quarterly statistics for the requested years. 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.

Staffing costs are included in the annual consolidated accounts, the scope of which cover Scottish Government as well as several other public bodies. The consolidated reports and accounts for the years requested can be found here: Financial reports and accounts - Government finance - gov.scot(www.gov.scot).

Please see attached Annex A for supplementary staffing cost information relating to SG Core specifically.

We are providing the information on a financial year basis which is consistent with our annual accounts publications. Therefore, the total cost for 2023-2024 will be published in the same location when available.

2. How much is the Scottish government spending on special advisers and press officers now, including how many of each are employed? Breakdown of these costs and also in each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022?

We have split your question into two parts:

• 2a. How much is the Scottish government spending on special advisers now, including how many are employed? Breakdown of these costs and also in each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022?
• 2b. How much is the Scottish government spending on press officers now, including how many are employed? Breakdown of these costs and also in each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022?

Response to Question 2a.

The information you have requested is available from the Parliament’s website:

2018-19: Parliamentary question and answer: S5W-26805 (Question: To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide the names of each Special Adviser, broken down by (a) responsibility and (b) pay band, and what the total cost of employing special advisers was in 2018-19.). Answered on 19 December 2019.

2019-20: Parliamentary question and answer: S5W-36009 (Question: To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide the names of each Special Adviser, broken down by (a) responsibility and (b) pay band, and what the total cost of employing special advisers was in 2019-20.). Answered on 24 March 2021.

2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23: S6W-17817 (Question: To ask the Scottish Government what the total cost of employing special advisers was in (a) 2020-21, (b) 2021-22 and (c) 2022-23.). Answered on 5 May 2023.

2023-24: S6W-16899 (Question: To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide the names of each Special Adviser, also broken down by their (a) responsibility and (b) pay band, and what the total cost of employing Special Advisers is expected to be (i) in 2023-24 and (ii) over the course of the parliamentary session.). Answered on 5 May 2023.

The current number of special advisers can also be found here: Special advisers - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

We are providing the information on a financial year basis which is consistent with our annual accounts publications. Therefore, the total cost for 2023-2024 is not known yet and will be published in the same location when available.

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 listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Response to Questions 2b.

Numbers and cost of frontline communications staff/press officers from 2018-2022 have been previously published and can be found at the following link: Press officers and special advisors: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Numbers of FTE staff vary throughout the financial year and the figures published at the link above represent staff numbers on just one day of each year. This means that these figures are a 'snapshot': they do not represent either a total number or average number of staff employed in the year. 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 listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

You have also asked for this information as of ‘now’, which we have interpreted to be 2023 information.

Year	FTE*
2023	51.1

*FTE figures are a snapshot from 30 November 2023. System data is extracted from the end of each month, so we have provided the figure for the end of the month (30 November) just preceding that of your request.

An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to the information requested in relation to the Scottish Government spending on press officers in 2022-23. This exemption applies because we intend to publish that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request at the following link: Communications staff (press officers): costs - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

We consider that it is reasonable to withhold the information until that date, rather than release this routinely published information before the planned publication date.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is some public interest in release and this will be met by our planned publication. In the meantime, there is a greater public interest in taking the time necessary to ensure the information has been properly collated and checked before it is published as planned. Also, we see no public interest in disrupting our programme of work to release the information ahead of the intended publication date.

We are providing the information on a financial year basis which is consistent with our consolidated accounts publications. The total cost for 2023-24 is therefore not known yet.

3. How many civil servants are making over £100k a year? Breakdown of who is making this and include the same for each of the following years: 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022?

Our pay ranges for civil servants below the Senior Civil Service (SCS) can be found at the following link: Our Reward Benefits - Work For Scotland (work-for-scotland.org). As you will see, none of these pay ranges exceed £100k.

In relation to salaries for senior civil servants (SCS), we are committed to regular publication of salary data on SCS staff which includes information on staff who receive salaries above £100k per year. This information can be found here. We are currently reviewing both the scope of this publication as well as updating and rectifying the years for which no publication took place due to work pressures arising from managing the COVID-19 response.

Therefore, an exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to this information. This exemption applies because we intend to publish that information 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 this routinely published information before the planned publication date.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is some public interest in release and this will be met by our planned publication. In the meantime, there is a greater public interest in taking the time necessary to ensure the information has been properly collated and checked before it is published as planned. Also, we see no public interest in disrupting our programme of work to release the information ahead of the intended publication date.

However, some of the information you have requested is already published:

The salary levels for Directors and above for the years 2023, and 2022 are available here: Senior Civil Service pay - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Responses to two parliamentary questions provide data as at February 2022 and November 2022:

February 2022: Written question and answer: S6W-06509 | Scottish Parliament Website  

(Question: To ask the Scottish Government how many of its staff receive a salary of over £100,000 per annum, broken down by department, and what the total cost is of those staff salaries.).

Answered 10 March 2022.

November 2022: Written question and answer: S6W-13282 | Scottish Parliament Website

(Question: To ask the Scottish Government how many of its staff receive a salary of over £100,000 per annum, broken down by directorate, and what the total cost of those staff salaries is.).

Answered 13 January 2023.

The response to FOI 202000107808 provides data as at 31 October 2020: Number of civil servants that receive a salary of £100,000 or more: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

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 listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy. I have also provided SG’s and UK government’s current SCS pay ranges as at 1 April 2023 for your information below. To note, SCS pay is reserved to the UK Government and managed by the Cabinet Office and is not delegated to Scottish Ministers.

Step	Deputy Director 1	Deputy Director 1A legacy grade	Director	Director General
Target rate-4	n/a	n/a	£103,231	£131,936
Target rate-3	n/a	n/a	£105,296	£134,574
Target rate-2	£86,398	£86,398	£107,402	£137,265
Target rate-1	£88,126	£88,126	£109,550	£140,011
Target rate	£89,888	£89,888	£111,741	£142,812
Target rate +1 (Deputy Director 1A)	n/a	£91,152	n/a	n/a

The pay ranges that we have adopted in SG (see table above) are within the broad pay ranges set by the UK Government for these grades (published here) as illustrated in the table below:

	DD1	DD1A	Director	DG
Grade Minimum	£75,000	£75,000	£97,000	£127,000
Grade Maximum	£117,800	£128,900	£162,500	£208,1000

4. How many Scottish government staff members have logged into work from abroad in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and could you include a list of where they logged in from?

We have interpreted your request as meaning instances of logging onto our IT system from abroad. The Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have asked for because it was routinely destroyed, in accordance with our standard records management practice, before the date of your request.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

For data which is currently archived rather than destroyed, indexing and rapid access has been removed as part of the archiving process. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the cost of manually searching archived information to extract the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. Under section 12 of FOISA, public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. Usually this can be done in such ways as seeking specific topics or smaller date ranges. I do consider that even a narrowed version of your request is unlikely to provide responses, however, for the reason stated above; we do not hold the information in the format that you requested and obtaining such would be most likely to exceed the cost limit each time. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

We are able to disclose information held within the last three months. From 03/10/23 to 18/12/23, 268 individuals logged in to the Scottish Government network from 48 countries. This includes a mixture of staff who work from SG offices in non-UK countries in overseas roles as well as instances where individuals are temporarily working overseas, for example in order to attend meetings or conferences. 30 of these locations were in Europe.

In relation to the last part of your question, you ask for a list of locations where staff have ‘logged in’ from. We consider that the information requested in this part of your request is exempt under 30(c) of FOISA (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs). In considering this exemption we have taken account of the fact that disclosure of information under the FOISA is to “the world at large”, not just to an individual applicant. We are therefore required to consider the effect of releasing the information into the public domain.

We recognise that there is an inherent public interest in openness and transparency regarding the use of Government systems. However we have to balance this interest with the ability of those travelling internationally on Government business to operate safely and securely, as well as to protect our networks and information, all of which is required to enable the conduct of public affairs. Providing details about the information you have requested into the public domain could subsequently be used by threat actors to evade any controls we might or might not have in place. As set out above, we can confirm that 30 of these locations were in Europe.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We consider that the public interest in ensuring that the security of our systems and processes and the safety of our staff is not compromised, thereby maintaining ability to conduct affairs of public office, outweighs that of disclosing this information. We have therefore decided to withhold the information.

5. How many Scottish government employees are currently not paid the national living wage?

The answer to your question is none. As a Living Wage accredited employer, no employee receives less than the rate of the “real” Living Wage.”

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.