Scottish Government employees receiving compensation for losing their position: FOI release

Information requested

Information over the names of MSPs, ministers or other officials including civil servants and staff who have received any payment related to losing any official position, by way of a compensation or pay off for each year since and including 2017 and can it be made clear whether the payments were contractual or otherwise.

Response

In your request, you asked for information about MSPs, ministers or other officials including civil servants. Please note that we are only able to provide details relating to permanent staff (civil servants) employed within the Scottish Government Core Director-General business areas – see Annex A for reference.

As advised in our previous response to your FOI (reference 202400440634), MSPs/ministers are not employed by the Scottish Government. As such, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. However, you may wish to contact the Scottish Parliament at foi.officer@parliament.scot who will be able to help you.

In relation to Scottish Government employees, we are unable to disclose the names of staff because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to that information. This exemption applies because the information you have requested is considered personal data of third parties (the members of staff in question) and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles set out in Article 5(1) of the UK 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. 

Our previous response provided a link to information about severance payments made to Special Advisers (see The Scottish Parliament Website). Such severance payments are made where the employment is terminated when a First Minister demits office, or on the dissolution of Parliament prior to a Scottish Parliamentary election. In your latest request, however, you have said that referring to a link was not the full answer so I have therefore added the information at Annex B. I can also confirm that no further severance payments have been made since the date of our last response.

In our previous reply, we also confirmed that no Scottish Government staff within the DG Core business areas have been made redundant during the period covered by your request.

Civil servants who leave the organisation because they are unable to provide regular and effective service due to ill-health can receive compensation under the efficiency dismissal arrangements. Such payments are not automatic and are made in line with the Civil Service Efficiency Compensation Guidance. Information about the number of staff who received compensation under these arrangements is provided at Annex C.

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 202500483313 - Information released - Annex A, B & C

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