Scottish Government staff formal grievance data: FOI release

Information requested

How many formal grievances were submitted per month in the time range you mentioned (55 formal grievances in the past 5 years)?

I am assuming the grievances mentioned were submitted within the specified period, not, for instance cases submitted 6 years ago but only later recorded within the 5 years’ timeframe.’

Response

In your request, you asked for information about internal grievances made by members of staff. Our response therefore covers Scottish Government staff employed in the core directorates (see Annex A below). Please also refer to our updated response to your previous FOI request under reference 202500462874 which was issued on 29 May 2025.

In our updated response, we informed you that there was an error with the number of formal grievance cases and provided an updated figure of 46 grievance cases. As such, this reply provides a breakdown of those 46 grievance cases.

As mentioned previously, under the Scottish Government's grievance policy, line managers are expected to deal with concerns about complaints at an early stage and on an informal basis, where appropriate. There is no requirement to report informal complaints and action to HR and therefore this is formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold information about informal complaints or actions.

In relation to your request, please find below a breakdown of the number of formal grievance cases broken down by month. I can confirm that all reported grievance cases were submitted within the specified period:

	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
January	0	1	1	1	0	0
February	0	0	1	1	0	1
March	0	0	1	2	2	1
April	0	0	0	2	0	4
May	0	1	0	2	0	0
June	0	0	1	1	4	0
July	0	2	1	0	2	0
August	0	1	1	0	0	0
September	0	2	0	1	1	0
October	2	1	0	1	0	0
November	0	1	1	0	1	0
December	0	1	0	0	0	0
Total	2	10	7	11	10	6

ANNEX A

Core Directorates of the Scottish Government:

Director-General Communities
Director-General Corporate
Director-General Economy
Director-General Education and Justice
Director-General Health and Social Care
Director-General Net Zero
Director-General Scottish Exchequer
Director-General Strategy and External Affairs

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.