Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) Staff training and procurement on Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity: FOI release

Information requested

1. The number of roles across all components of your operations, directorates and management structures, expressed in numbers of full-time employees (FTE), that are mainly or exclusively focussed on issues of equality, diversity, or inclusivity. This information should encompass all roles based in central offices, as well as those based around the country. Roles meeting this description could include (amongst other guises) “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer” (EDI) or “Diversity and Inclusion Project Managers”. Please break down, if possible, the number of roles per component part of your operations. For all roles meeting this description, please also provide, in order of preference, either a) the salary of these roles, b) the pay band of these roles, or c) the combined total salary of these roles. Please provide the information that is most in accordance with your data processing practices. Please also advise if there are any plans to hire further staff in these areas within the next 18 months, and the roles/pay bands that they are likely to occupy.

2. With the same criteria as above, please provide the number of internal training courses attended by staff which pertain to the issues encompassed by equality, diversity or inclusivity. Please include the name of the courses, the number of attendees, and the duration of the course.

3. Please, if possible, provide details of any internal EDI practices and networks, including the number of individuals who are members of such networks.

4. Please provide details of any external contractors brought in by the department to conduct training, advice, or guidance on issues relating to EDI. Where applicable this should include costs and associated manhours.

5. Please provide details of how equality, diversity and inclusivity is included in your procurement practices, the relative weight afforded to these considerations, and the current value of contracts in
which EDI considerations was a part of the procurement process.

Response

1. There are currently no roles within SPPA mainly or exclusively focussed on issues of equality, diversity, or inclusivity. There are no plans to recruit any roles meeting this description.

2. ED&I based training in last 12 months:

There is a mandatory online course for all staff titled “Inclusive Culture”. This takes approx. 30-40 mins to complete (once a year) via the Civil Service Learning portal (Government Campus Access). SPPA pay a one off lumpsum every year, via core Scottish Government at a cost of £4,472.24 (24/25). This is based on the number of colleagues/per head (current headcount is 393). This gives colleagues access to a broad library of learning, not just ED&I.

3. SPPA have a Diversity and Inclusion Group. This comprises of 16 colleague representatives from across the Agency who meet once a month for an hour. Representation from this group also attend the SPPA Colleague Forum.

4. External providers of ED&I training:

As part of the SPPA Leadership Programme colleagues covered a section on ED&I and SPPA values. The programme took place across 4 sessions which had approx. 90 attendees. Elite Training delivered the programme. There was approx. 16 hours in total with approx. 4 hours dedicated to ED&I at a cost of £995 (based on the provider’s day rate).

5. The public sector equality duty (Equality Act 2010) requires all public bodies in the exercise of their functions, to have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other prohibited conduct 
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who do not
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not

Specific duties made by Scottish Ministers (Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Regulations 2012) apply when a public authority awards a contract or framework agreement which is covered by the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 and requires public bodies to have due regard to whether both award criteria and contract performance conditions should include considerations to enable the better performance of the public sector equality duty. Buyers are being helped and encouraged to consider equality, diversity, and inclusion systematically alongside other social, economic, and environmental factors through use of the sustainable procurement tools and guidance. The tools and guidance have been designed to help buyers identify and pursue equality outcomes in all their procurement activity. We have embedded a focus on equality, jobs, and training (with a clear onus on protected characteristics) through our long-standing Community Benefits in Procurement policy and guidance. The allocation of weightings afforded to any considerations in a contract is determined on a case-by-case basis to ensure they are relevant and proportionate to the contract in question.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. Searching Scottish Government records for the relative weightings afforded to EDI considerations, and the current value of contracts in which EDI considerations was a part of the procurement process would require the review of at least 7676 contracts totalling over £17.854 billion that are potentially in scope under the request as currently formed. 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. It may be advisable to narrow the timeframe or specify particular business areas or indicate specific contracts in which you are interested. 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: https://www.foi.scot/how-do-i-ask.

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.