Respiratory and Clinical Priorities Staffing and Budget: FOI release

Information requested

1. How many full-time equivalent staff work in the Scottish Government on respiratory, broken down by each financial year since 2021/22.

2. How many full-time equivalent staff work in each disease area in the clinical priorities team, including management, broken down by each financial year since 2021/22 and disease area.

3. What allocation of the clinical priorities budget was spent on respiratory, broken by real figure and percentages and by each financial year since 2021/22.

Response

I enclose some of the information you requested.

1. How many full-time equivalent staff work in the Scottish Government on respiratory, broken down by each financial year since 2021/22.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. The Scottish Government does not collect the information you have asked for because we do not keep records of who is currently working on or has previously worked on a particular policy area or long-term condition.

2. How many full-time equivalent staff work in each disease area in the clinical priorities team, including management, broken down by each financial year since 2021/22 and disease area?

The Clinical Priorities Unit has now been replaced by the Long Term Conditions Policy Unit. It is not possible to provide an exact full-time equivalent (FTE) breakdown for each disease area because some staff work on multiple disease areas.

The unit is led by a unit head. We can provide an indicative breakdown of other staff in the unit and the areas they work on.

Diabetes and respiratory conditions

Two members of staff, supported by one team leader (also for chronic pain)

Chronic pain

One member of staff, supported by one team leader (also for diabetes and respiratory conditions)

Stroke

Two members of staff, supported by one team leader (also for heart disease and out of hospital cardiac arrest)

Heart disease and out of hospital cardiac arrest

Two members of staff, supported by one team leader (also for stroke)

Neurological conditions

Four members of staff, supported by one team leader

3. What allocation of the clinical priorities budget was spent on respiratory, broken by real figure and percentages and by each financial year since 2021/22.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Due to the complexity in way that finance is managed centrally, we are unable to provide you with accurate real figures and percentages of the overall spend on respiratory from the overall allocated budget to the Clinical Priorities Unit in each of the financial years.

We are able provide you with the actual spend on respiratory from the Clinical Priorities budget in each of the financial years since 2021/22, this is as follows:

• 2021/22 = £40,324
• 2022/23 = £57,229
• 2023/24 = £92,006
• 2024/25 = £27,101

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.