Total costs of the Review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/03563
Date received: 28 November 2018
Date responded: 20 December 2018

 

 

You asked for the total costs involved in carrying out, analysing and publishing the Review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004: A consultation. 
 

 

I will respond to each aspect of your request in turn.
 
Cost of carrying out consultation. 
 
1. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the full cost information of drafting and finalising the content of the consultation.
 
2. In addition to work carried out by officials in the Family Law team which is part of the Justice Directorate, development and drafting of the gender recognition consultation required the involvement of a number of policy areas within Scottish Government and in some public bodies, including from: the Equality Unit (a team in Scottish Government); Communities Analytical Services (a team in Scottish Government); Scottish Government Human Resources; National Records of Scotland; the Scottish Public Pensions Agency; and  NHS National Services Scotland.

3. There is no business need to record the time officials working across the Scottish Government have spent specifically assisting in the preparation of individual consultations. In addition, officials in the Family Law team report to a Senior Civil Servant. Again, there is no business requirement to record the proportion of management time they spend on each specific area with their portfolio. 
 
4. Information about the Family Law team’s estates costs is not held as these costs are part of the wider Scottish Government estate and are not disaggregated to team level. 
 
5. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have requested. 
 
6. However, we can provide you with an estimate of the salary costs of those Scottish Government officials primarily concerned with the preparation of the consultation document up to its publication date on 9 November 2017.   
 
7. Of the five officials in the Family Law team, one member of staff worked primarily on the gender recognition consultation from January 2017 up to the consultation’s publication on 9 November 2017. In addition, another official in that team spent an estimated 25% of their time on gender recognition work.  
 
8. We estimate that the salaries of those two officials, in respect of the preparation of the consultation for publication between 1 January 2017 and publication data on 9 November 2017 to the nearest £5000 were £50,000. 
 
Costs of publication of the consultation. 
 
9. The total publishing cost for the consultation including VAT was £1759.76 (or £1,466.46 excluding VAT). 
 
Costs of analysis of consultation responses and publication of that analysis.
 
10. Independent analysis of the consultation responses cost £30,000 including VAT (or £25,000 excluding VAT). 
 
11. The cost of publishing that analysis was £1,405.71 including VAT (or £1,171.43 excluding VAT).
 
Total estimated costs.
 
12. Based on the foregoing and including staff costs, we estimate that the total cost involved in carrying out, analysing and publishing the Review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004: A consultation, to the nearest £5000, was £85,000.