Contractors/consultants spend: FOI release

Information requested

How much does Scot Gov spend in the last 6 months on contractors/consultants. How many were there?

Response

I have interpreted your request for data relating to contractors as temporary and interim workers.

Please note that the data for numbers of workers is taken from the HR system and the spend is taken from our finance system and therefore cannot be viewed as inter-related. It is also worth noting that the number of consultants listed below is only where a record exists on our HR system and procuring consultancy services does not record headcount as these services are typically specified on an output and delivery basis.

I have detailed some of the information you request below –

	Workforce Numbers	Spend (Sep 24 – Feb 25)
Consultants	29	N/A
Temporary & Interim Workers	685	£22,719,517.20

I have not been able to provide you with the spend for consultants as during this period The Scottish Government implemented a new Oracle Cloud enterprise resource planning system, replacing our legacy HR and Finance systems. Though the data capture of consultants remains an area requiring further development, the implementation of a combined HR and Finance system will in time improve the data we hold on workforce costs. The spend on consultants will be published in the future as part of the annual Scottish Government spending under the Public Service Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.

The latest consultancy spend published for financial year 2023 to 24 under the Public Sector Reform Act is available here - 2023 to 2024 - Government expenditure - gov.scot. Further historical spend is available here- Government expenditure: 2016 to 2023 - gov.scot

The Scottish Government proactively publishes data relating to its workforce on a quarterly basis at the following link - Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot.

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.