National Bargaining wage rises for Further Education Lecturers: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/01331
Date received: 15 June 2017
Date responded: 7 July 2017

Information requested

1. A copy of information relating to the where the money has gone for the wage rises for Further Education Lecturers in Scotland for National Bargaining, details of any meetings about this issue, a copy of any minutes taken during any meetings or briefing prepared.

2. A copy all emails between John Swinney and Colleges Scotland about National Bargaining wage rises for Further Education Lecturers in Scotland. To assist with searching, I am happy to restrict this request to the period between 1st January 2016 and the present date 15th June 2017.

Response

1. There will clearly be cost implications of this agreement which the Scottish Government will seek to reflect in future budget settlements. In his letter of 12 June 2017, the CEO of the Scottish Funding Council advised Colleges Scotland that additional funding made available in 2017/18 was sufficient to meet the costs of the lecturers' pay settlement alone for 2017-18. That letter was copied to all college Principals and made available to the EIS. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have details of any meetings specifically about this issue, a copy of any minutes taken during any meetings or briefing prepared. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained in Annex A to this letter.

2. I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested at Annex B.

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.

Reasons for not providing information

The Scottish Government does not have the information.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because there were no meetings set up that focused on this issue involving the Scottish Government, and therefore no minutes taken. No briefing has been prepared on this issue. There have been no emails directly between John Swinney and Colleges Scotland about National Bargaining wage rises for Further Education Lecturers in Scotland. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

An exemption applies.

Exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information).

This applies to some of the information requested because it contains personal data of a third party, i.e. Scottish Government official names below Senior Civil Service and their direct contact details. This information has been redacted throughout the documents which are being released. Disclosing this information would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. 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.

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FoI - 17 01331 supporting documents.pdf

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