Modelling behind published economic impact of halving disability employment gap: FOI release

1. a copy of the model and any required underlying data used to produce the results of economic impact modelling of halving the disability employment gap, along with any documents or guidance detailing its operation and/or the methodology used;
2. a copy of any interactive version of the model (such as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet) held by the Scottish Government which can be used to manipulate its assumptions and inputs in order to model different disability employment, economic growth, and labour market scenarios; and
3. a copy of any graph or chart produced by the Scottish Government, or a third-party on its behalf, which illustrates over time the likelihood of it achieving its goal to halve the disability employment gap or otherwise improve employment rates of disabled people, and, in particular, any chart which shows a range of outcomes as a range of varying labour market and economic conditions.
4. If the Scottish Government holds information regarding this matter which I have not requested above but which you believe may be helpful to me in order to understand the method by which it has arrived at its assumptions about the economic advantages brought about by increased labour market representation of disabled people, I would be grateful if you would provide a copy or direct me to any publicly available resources.

An exemption applies, subject to the public interest test – requests 1 & 2.

An exemption under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested (requests 1 & 2). Section 33: Commercial Interests and the economy, (1)(b) Substantial prejudice to commercial interests. Information is exempt under this section if it would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of anyone by being disclosed. This applies because although the Scottish Government owns the CGE model used to produce the analysis in question, the intellectual property rights of the model remain the ownership of the model designer, The Fraser of Allander Institute of Strathclyde University, Glasgow.

Providing a copy of the CGE model to a 3rd party would prejudice their commercial interests as the Fraser of Allander provide economic consultancy services to clients using the original version of the model. Disclosing this information would likely give competitors an advantage in any future tendering exercises, prejudicing the Fraser of Allander Institute’s ability to submit competitive tenders and harming their commercial business.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’.  Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is some public interest in releasing this model as it could be used to verify the results of the Scottish Government’s published analysis or conduct similar analysis. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in not releasing information that would prejudice the commercial interests of one of the Scottish Government’s stakeholders, The Fraser of Allander Institute.

The Scottish Government does not have the information – request 3

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for under request 3 because as outlined in a Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: employment action plan[1], our analysis shows the disability employment gap to be largely structural in nature – it has remained of similar size throughout the economic cycle.

We recognise that achieving our ambition to halve the disability employment gap will be influenced by a wide range of factors and drivers - including a societal shift in culture. Attribution of the different drivers to halving the disability employment gap cannot be undertaken in an analytically robust way based upon current data and available evidence. However, based upon similar types of structural change in the labour market and the increases in the employment rate of disabled people required to half the disability employment gap, we consider our target to be ambitious.

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