Scottish Government's organisational chart and staff working abroad: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/01687
Date received: 20 June 2017
Date responded: 9 August 2017

Information requested

A) Every version of the Scottish Government's organisational chart (high level) since 2007

B) Every version of the Scottish Government's organisational chart (operational level, including individual job titles within departments/directorates) since 2007

C) Total number of external advisory boards/panels/bodies advising the Scottish Government/Scottish Ministers in existence since 2007, their present status, alongside their names

E) Location of all Scottish Government offices/branches outside Scotland, and the date which they were opened

F) Names of all the countries outside the United Kingdom that have a Scottish Government staff presence

Response

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

We have answered requests a) and b) together in Annex A, request c) in Annex B and requests e) and f) together in Annex C.

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 in the Annex A to this letter.

We are also unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption(s) under section(s) 12 on the grounds of cost of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why that exemption(s) applies are explained in the Annex B to this letter.

Annex A:

You asked for: every version of the Scottish Government's organisational chart (high level) since 2007 and every version of the Scottish Government's organisational chart (operational level, including individual job titles within departments/directorates) since 2007.

The Scottish Government does not have some of the information.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because SG does not have a central source of organisational charts at the levels requested. The charting software used by the SG presents only the organisation structure which is current on that day, no historical position is retained. Information on the current structure of the SG is available on SG website.

In order to provide a consistently formatted history of the organisation structure over the years you require we have provided data on the structure of the core Scottish Government using the organisational hierarchy held in our electronic HR system. This shows the structure as at end June each year since 2007 from Directorate-General level to Divisional level. We consider Directorate-General to be high level and Divisional to be operational. Please note that the current structure of the organisation in the data is at end July 2017. This data can be used to create both high level and operational organisational charts.

We have provided a unique list of job titles within each Division, Directorate and Directorate-General for end July 2017 only. Data for 2007-2016 is not held. This is because there is no centrally held historic information on job titles. Job titles are a 'user-entered' field within our electronic HR system and we have provided the data as recorded in the system.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Annex B: an exemption applies

You asked for: Total number of external advisory boards/panels/bodies advising the Scottish Government/Scottish Ministers in existence since 2007, their present status, alongside their names.

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. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records 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. For example, you could specify the subject matter(s) you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government and identify a specific year, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on her website.

Annex C

You asked for: Location of all Scottish Government offices/branches outside Scotland, the date which they were opened and the names of all the countries outside the United Kingdom that have a Scottish Government staff presence.

SG Office outside Scotland (location including country)	Date the Office Opened
Washington DC, USA	October 2001
Toronto, Canada	February 2011
Beijing, China	November 2005
Brussels, Belgium	October 1999
Dublin, Ireland	January 2016
London, UK	April 2017

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses

FoI - 17-01687 - SG Core Organisational Hierarchies 2007-2017 - information.xlsx

File type

Excel document

File size

106.6 kB