Cost of the Children (Scotland) Bill: FOI release

Information requested

The total costs of the Children (Scotland) Bill (the Bill) from 2018 to conclusion in 2020.

You have asked for these costs to include ‘the works performed in preparations by the Family Law Department including during the consultation period, justice committee support and full parliamentary amendment meetings’, as well as ‘the cost of the analysis of survey results and presentation of those results, and further paid for academic/professional reports for use by the justice committee’.

In relation to the same Bill, you have also asked for ‘the total cost of convening the justice committee and all members for MSP final votes’.

You have indicated that ‘from 2018’ is the start point of the time period from which you seek the information. As you have also mentioned a ‘consultation period’, we have interpreted this as referring to the Review of Part 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and creation of a Family Justice Modernisation Strategy consultation which opened on 15 May 2018. Our searches were therefore conducted on the period from January 2018 onwards, including information on this review.

We have interpreted the ‘conclusion in 2020’ time period end point as Royal Assent for the Bill, when it became the Children (Scotland) Act 2020. This occurred on 1 October 2020.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you have requested at Annex A (attached to the covering email). This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have requested.

Please note that these figures do not include the cost of staff time. The development of the Bill was led by officials in the Family Law Unit, which sits within the Directorate for Justice. However, not all officials in the Unit worked on the Bill and, for those that did, it was not their full-time role to do so (they worked on other policy tasks). Additionally, colleagues from other areas across the government (such as those in the Directorate for Children and Families) also provided input into the Bill as it developed.

There is no business requirement to record the time Scottish Government officials spend working on specific tasks. It is therefore not possible to provide you with costs of staff time spent working on the Bill. This includes any support given to Scottish Ministers attending relevant sessions of the Justice Committee.

There may have been some expenditure incurred by staff travelling to and from events for the purposes of discussing the Bill during its development with stakeholders. However, we cannot provide an accurate account of this as Scottish Government staff calendars are no longer available for the timeframe of your request. Also, claiming for travel expenses is, for the most part, the responsibility of individual officials, and some events or travel days for one particular purpose may also have been used for government work unrelated to that purpose as well.

Additionally, prior to the Covid pandemic in 2020, Directorates generally kept a stock of flexible tickets for staff to use for official travel between Edinburgh and Glasgow (excluding their regular commute). These would have been used for official engagements in those cities, if any took place, but as they were not purchased for specific meetings, we are not able to disaggregate the records to say if any were used by staff for meetings and events associated with this Bill.

For these reasons, it is not possible to provide you with any travel costs incurred by staff for meetings and events associated with the Bill (if, indeed, there were any).

We are aware of at least two further costs not included in Annex A. These are for the publication of the following two documents:

• Review of Part 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and creation of a Family Justice Modernisation Strategy – Consultation
• Review of Part 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and creation of a Family Justice Modernisation Strategy – Analysis of Consultation Responses (publication only – production costs, carried out by an external organisation, are included in Annex A)

Unfortunately, we have been unable to locate these publication costs.

You asked for our response to include ‘further paid for academic/professional reports for use by the justice committee’ and ‘the total cost of convening the justice committee and all members for MSP final votes’.

The Scottish Government is separate and distinct from the Scottish Parliament. Committees, including the then-extant Justice Committee mentioned in your request, form a part of the structure of the Scottish Parliament. Any costs associated with the operation of Committees is therefore a matter for the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body.

Similarly, in reference to your ask for the cost of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) voting on the Bill, expenses for the general operation of the Parliament and its parliamentary programme are also a matter for the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body. Certain expenditure incurred by MSPs in their dayto- day duties may also be borne by the political party to which they belong, if relevant.

You may wish to contact the Scottish Parliament who may be able to help you further. To do so, you can complete an FOI request form, email them at foi.officer@parliament.scot or write to them at the following address:

The Information Management and Governance Team
The Scottish Parliament
Holyrood
Edinburgh
EH99 1SP

Further information about making an FOISA request to the Scottish Parliament is available on their website.

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.

FOI 202500452355 - Information released - Annex A

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