Scottish Government pay deals, pay rises and budget increases: FOI release

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


Information requested

1. A full list of public sector pay deals negotiated and agreed by the Scottish Government since 2007. This should include all details of agreed terms, including but not limited to pay change %, change to hours in work week, unions involved in negotiation, and introduction/removal of other contractual elements.

2. By year and by group agreed with, since 2007, all public sector pay rises negotiated and agreed by the Scottish Government since 2007.

3. Proportion of Scottish Government budget increases, since 2007-08, incurred by public sector pay increases.

Response

Response to question 1 and 2:

You have asked about all pay deals negotiated and agreed by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government only negotiates and agrees pay awards for Band A – C staff within Scottish Government Main (SGM) and seafaring staff in the Scottish Government (SG) Marine bargaining units. You can find information on which bodies are included within SGM in Annex A. Pay and terms and conditions for Senior Civil Servants employed in the Scottish Government are reserved to the UK Government and are not therefore negotiated by the Scottish Government.

All other pay deals within the Scottish public sector are negotiated and agreed between individual public bodies and their staff representatives in line with public sector pay policy.

Our response will therefore be based on SGM and SG Marine pay awards.

Enclosed are copies of all formal pay award offers the Scottish Government has negotiated and agreed for SGM and SG Marine since 2007, which include all of the information you requested. Pay award documents for SG Marine only go back to 2011 as this was the first pay award SG negotiated and agreed for seafaring staff in the SG Marine bargaining units following its formation in 2009. Redactions have been applied to these documents where the information is in relation to a third party’s personal information or out of the scope of the current request.

The recognised trade unions for the SGM Bargaining Unit who have been involved in these pay award negotiations were the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Prospect and FDA.

The recognised trade unions for the SG Marine Bargaining Unit who have been involved in these pay award negotiations were Unite the Union (Unite) and Nautilus International (Nautilus).

Response to question 3:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for due to the scope and complexity of the Scottish Budget, including the variety of pay agreements implemented across the Scottish public sector workforce since 2007-08. 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 https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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