Expense claim controls for Scottish Government employees and Ministers: FOI release

Information requested

All I want to know is what controls are in place for expense claims from a governance and accountability perspective. For the SNP, Scottish Government and Scottiah Parliament. Any other political parties are welcome - can we just focus on SNP, SG, SP for the PO purpose of my initial email.

Response

The Scottish Government uses Oracle financial systems which are used to process claims made by both Scottish Government employees and Scottish Government Ministers to reclaim additional travel and subsistence expenses incurred when travelling on official business. These expenses must be within policy limits. The policy states the following in relation to receipts:

"Receipts

You must upload receipts for all expenditure, except mileage allowances and toll charges. The receipt must clearly identify the costs incurred and the date.

Where tickets are not available or retained, for example at train station barriers, car park barriers or for phone calls, you must provide a justification to explain why you do not have a receipt.

Credit or debit card statements are not accepted as proof of expenditure. Please don't submit receipts that include any personal items where possible. Personal items included on a receipt should be crossed out on the receipt and not included in the claim.”

We require receipts to be attached to the expenses claim - where there is no receipt, a justification needs to be provided to explain why there is no receipt (e.g. train ticket barrier retained the ticket). All expense claims are checked and countersigned by a countersigning officer as well as the claimant. Part of that check includes confirming that the expenses were incurred on official Government business and not on, for example, personal, constituency or Party business. All Ministerial expenses are checked by the Travel and Subsistence team to ensure the claims are compliant before they can be paid.

As explained in emails to you, we do not hold information on expense claims made by the SNP in the party space nor on Scottish Parliament expenses made by MSPs in relation to constituency work. You will need to contact SNP headquarters and the Scottish Parliament respectively for this information. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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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.