Follow up to FOI/202000079230 - Disclosure Scotland and recruitment agencies: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for :

Question 1 Were all the temporary staff taken on as a result of Disclosure Scotland putting its new IT systems in place?

Question 5 The FOI says Disclosure Scotland 'no longer recruits temporary staff' - does it still have any temporary employees that were recruited prior to the FOI being filed? If so, how many and what are they working on?

Question 6 . How much in total did Disclosure Scotland spend on hiring temporary staff to work on the transformation programme? From the last two years' accounts plus the FOI, I make it just over £20m, but there is obviously a gap of four months between the last accounts ending and the period covered by the FOI starting so if you could give me a more accurate figure that would be very helpful.

Response

I enclose a copy of the information you requested.

The answer to your question is:

Question 1. Were all the temporary staff taken on as a result of Disclosure Scotland putting its new IT systems in place?

The answer is yes. Temporary staff were taken on to manage application processing, as well as a group of IT specialists.

Question 5. The FOI says Disclosure Scotland 'no longer recruits temporary staff' - does it still have any temporary employees that were recruited prior to the FOI being filed? If so, how many and what are they working on?

Disclosure Scotland still has temporary staff that were recruited prior to FOI/202000079230. These staff are employed through agencies to provide specialist technical knowledge and support to operations. We currently have 108 temporary staff processing applications, dealing with customer enquiries and providing financial support. The number of staff varies through business need. We also have 37 IT specialists who develop and support the new system.

Question 6. How much in total did Disclosure Scotland spend on hiring temporary staff to work on the transformation programme? From the last two years' accounts plus the FOI, I make it just over £20m, but there is obviously a gap of four months between the last accounts ending and the period covered by the FOI starting so if you could give me a more accurate figure that would be very helpful.

The cost of temporary staff on the DS Transformation Programme is broken down in the table below. The cost profile concludes at 31 December 2019, when Disclosure Scotland assumed ownership of the service.

Cost of Temporary Contractors working on the Transformation Programme
Financial Year	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20	Total
Cost of temp contractors	£1,083,517	£664,591	£1,305,218	£1,219,202	£1,945,415	£6,217,943

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.