Publication - FOI/EIR release

Workforce composition and diversity within Social Security Scotland: FOI release

Published: 16 February 2026
Directorate: People Directorate
Topic: Money and tax, Public sector, Work and skills
FOI reference: FOI/202500494076
Date received: 14 November 2025
Date responded: 15 December 2025

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Information requested

A breakdown of the employees by:

Race
Religion
Ethnicity
Nationality
Place of birth

For the following groups of employees

1) For all employees who received permanent and temporary promotion between 31st of July 2023 till date.

a)Total number of permanent promotions
b)Total number of Temporary promotions

2) For the same period, please provide the total number of hiring managers used by Social Security Scotland for the permanent and temporary promotions with a similar breakdown for each category.

3) Please provide the numbers of A4,B1,B2,B3,C1,C2 in Carers Support payment with similar breakdown, also providing percentage for each category.

4) Please provide the total number of employees working in the intelligence Unit (namely Intelligence officers, TMs) and their composition by Race, religion, ethnicity, nationality and place of birth.

5) Similar Information for the head of operations, HR lead, Peoples Advice Lead and project leaders with percentage for each category as requested in other sections.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

Information on employee’s ethnic group and religion are captured via voluntary self-reporting on the Scottish Governments HR system Oracle Cloud. Data on employees race, nationality or place of birth are not captured on these systems are not otherwise held for employees.

1) Details of the ethnic group and religion of employees who received permanent and temporary promotions within Social Security Scotland is provided in the attached spreadsheet titled 'SSS promotions - Jul 2023 to Nov 2025'

2) Details of the ethnic group and religion of hiring managers for permanent posts and temporary posts requisitioned between 31 July 2023 and 30 November 2025, along with a combined breakdown of all unique hiring managers over this period, are provided in the attached spreadsheet titled 'SSS - hiring manager diversity from Jul 2023 to Nov 2025'.

3) For staff in the Careers Support payment branch - information is only available for staff in the unit between 01 April 2025 to 30 November 2025. Until April 2025, Carers Support Payment was held on HR systems under the ‘Low Income Benefits’ branch. This was an umbrella for various Social Security Scotland benefits which generally shared management and staffing through staff flexing between different workstreams as required. Specific headcount for each benefit, including Carers Support Payment, was not tracked or maintained on HR systems. Details of the ethnic group and religion of the A4,B1,B2,B3,C1 and C2 staff in the Carers Support payment branch from April 2025 to November 2025 are provided in the attached spreadsheet titled 'Carers Support Payment - staff diversity from Apr 2025 to Nov 2025'.

4) For staff in the intelligence unit it is only possible to provide details of staff taken from a current snapshot from November 2025. This is not a standalone branch on HR systems and accurate data on the makeup of this team since July 2023 is not held. Details of the ethnic group and religion of these staff is provided in the attached spreadsheet titled 'Intelligence Unit - staff diversity from Nov 2025'.

5)There are no Social Security Scotland roles of ‘HR lead’, ‘Peoples Advice Lead’ and project leaders therefore no breakdown of these staff is possible. There are 7 staff in the role of head of Operations.

An exemption(s) under section s.38(1) Personal Information of FOISA applies to the information you have requested. Section 38(1)(b) can be applied when disclosure of the information requested would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the GDPR. We have determined that providing a breakdown of the ethnic group and religion of these 7 staff could result in the release of personal information about identifiable individuals. 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.

About FOI

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