Social Security Scotland staff suspension queries: FOI release

Information requested

Request for information 1: In each year since 2020-21, including the current year to date, how many employees at this public body have been suspended with full pay?

Request for information 2: In relation to Q1, what is the respective salary of these employees?

Request for information 3: Please provide as much detail as possible on why these employees were suspended. E.g. Disciplinary issues, poor quality of work etc.

Response

Request for information 1, 2 & 3:

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to all of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party,i.e. given the low numbers of staff who have been suspended on full pay over this period, we are satisfied that there is a realistic prospect that releasing the information risks releasing personal information, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

However, in order to assist there were 5 people in total who were suspended with full pay at some point between 2020 and the current date.

The grades ranged from A3 to B2 and the respective pay ranges are attached for that period.

In all cases the reason for suspension was due to misconduct.

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 202500477423 - Information released - Annex

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