Net Zero staff and consultant spending: FOI release

Information requested

From the last three financial year’s budgeted figures (22/23, 23/24, 24/25):

1. Climate-related posts
a) The number of posts (headcount, and FTE where recorded) employed with job titles that include any of the following terms:

Climate; Net Zero; Sustainability; Carbon; Emissions; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change; Climate Action; Climate Policy; Climate Programme; Climate Project; Climate Data; Climate Reporting; Climate Adaptation; Climate Resilience; Energy and Climate; Sustainable Procurement; Green Finance; Green.

2. Cost of those posts
The total employment cost for the posts identified in Question 1, including salary and employer oncosts (e.g. pension and National Insurance).

3. External consultants
The total amount paid during the same financial year to external consultants, companies, or contractors where the expenditure is recorded under any cost centre, project code, budget line, or purchase description that includes one or more of the following terms:

Climate; Net Zero; Sustainability; Carbon; Emissions; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change; Climate Action; Climate Policy; Climate Programme; Climate Project; Climate Data; Climate Reporting; Climate Adaptation; Climate Resilience; Energy and Climate; Sustainable Procurement; Green Finance; Green.

This should include, but not be limited to, expenditure coded to professional services, consultancy, advisory services, or specialist support.

If the council does not record expenditure in this way, please provide the closest equivalent recorded information held (for example, totals by relevant cost centre or project). If any information requested is not held, please state this clearly. If figures are held only in aggregated form, please provide the aggregated figures. Estimates derived from recorded financial information are acceptable.

If complying with this request would exceed the cost limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, please provide advice and assistance under Section 16 as to how the request may be refined.

Please provide the information requested above in the following table format, where held:
Financial Year
Job Title
Staff Costs including on-costs (£)
Headcount
Consultant Spend

Response

I enclose an answer to questions 1 and 2 of the information you requested below. It is not possible to provide a breakdown of the information requested in the format requested as breaking this information down to an individual level would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK GDPR and has therefore been withheld under Section 38 (Personal information) of the FOISA Regulations. You may find the following information relating to Scottish Government financial rewards and benefits of interest: Financial rewards - Scottish Government Jobs.

Financial Year	Headcount	FTE	Cost*
2024-25**	8	8.0	£685,932.00
2023-24	119	114.0	£9,821,048.00
2022-23	87	84.3	£6,700,427.00

* Cost includes salaries, allowances and supplements, employer NI contributions and employer pension contributions.
** Please note that the headcounts from 2022/23 and 2023/24 are not comparable with headcounts from 2024/25 due to the roll out of new HR software in October 2024 which records job title data in a different format.

For your third question, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. This is because the nature of the request in question 3 would require a full and intensive search of financial transactions across all Directorates of the Scottish Government. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. You may wish to narrow your request to a specific Directorate General or Directorate, and reduce the search terms to one term. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

You may also find the following information previously published under Environmental Information Regulations of interest: Consultancy fees relating to net-zero policy: EIR release - gov.scot

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.