Information regarding staff within Corporate communications: FOI release

Information requested

1. How many staff are employed within the Scottish Government corporate communications department (or equivalent) with duties involving the health and social care portfolio?

2. What pay banding do each of the staff members within the department with duties relating to the health and social care portfolio fall into? Please advise the minimum and maximum pay for each banding.

3. How many vacancies are there currently within the corporate communications team (or equivalent) with duties relating to the health and social care portfolio? Which roles are these vacancies for?

Response

1. The number of staff employed within the Scottish Government corporate communications department for the health and social care portfolio is set out below. FTE figures are a snapshot from March 31 2022. 

The Health and Social Care Corporate Communications team has 11.8 FTE. The Corporate Communications team covers responsibilities across internal staff communication, NHS Board engagement and communications support, digital and social media, events, strategic communications and brand management across the health and social care portfolio.

You may also want to be aware that there are staff in the Communications division with duties related to health and social care. There are dedicated news and marketing teams as well as staff within the digital and strategy and insight teams who support those teams. Details are set out below.

The Health News team has 16.8 FTE. This team explains Scottish Government policies, responds to media enquiries, supports four ministers and clinicians with media appearances and operates the
@scotgovhealth twitter channel. The team also works collaboratively with communications teams from NHS Boards. The COVID-19 pandemic saw a huge increase in the need to deploy life-saving public health information and a near doubling of the volume of reactive media enquiries calls compared to prepandemic.

The Digital team has no dedicated health resource, however it does support the News team with creation of public health messages for Scottish Government digital channels. We estimate this equates to 4 FTE.

The Health Marketing Team has 10.9 FTE. The Marketing Team is responsible for the delivery of national public information and behaviour change campaigns to support key health and social care policy aims. Campaigns are developed based on in-depth public insight research and are evaluated independently against SMART targets. Public engagement campaigns formed a vital role during the Covid-19 pandemic and have also supported the public to take live saving actions around areas such a Detecting Cancer Early, cancer screening and mental health. The team provide essential support with campaign development for all health and social care activity ranging from communications about coronavirus to our prevention activity (bowel, lung and cervical cancer, flu), providing essential mental health and wellbeing support, reducing pressure on NHS services and health and social care recruitment.

The Strategy & Insight Team has 4.5 FTE. This team is an in-house research and audience insight function who ran ongoing quantative and qualitative research to inform effective communication approaches and provide robust evaluation throughout the covid-19 pandemic. Those who were involved in research and planning to develop effective overarching communication strategies and interventions to increase awareness of life-saving public information and prompt vital action, such as to increase vaccine uptake or reach and engage with seldom heard audience groups.

Numbers of FTE staff vary throughout the financial year and the figures represent staff numbers on just one day of each year, March 31. This means that these figures are a 'snapshot': they do not represent either a total number or average number of staff employed in the year.

2. Pay ranges from April 2021 - Scottish Government Main
From 1 April 2021, the following pay ranges apply:

	B1	B2	B3	C1	C2	C3
Max-3	27,231	31,542	39,659	49,861	65,275	75,446
Max-2	27,938	33,071	40,814	53,476	67,545	76,307
Max-1	28,990	34,600	42,996	57,190	70,478	77,168
Max	30,039	36,129	47,485	62,167	75,341	77,340

Pay ranges from April 2022 – Scottish Government Main have not been confirmed.
As some of these are specialist posts, they carry a professional pay supplement for the following grades:
· B2: £2,000 per annum pro rata rising to £3,750 on completion of 12 months' successful service.
· B3-C3: £3,000 per annum pro rata rising to £5,000 on completion of 12 months' successful service.
Pay supplements are temporary and reviewed every three years. They are paid monthly in addition to basic pay.

3. The number of vacancies within the Scottish Government corporate communications department (or equivalent) with duties involving the health and social care portfolio are set out in the table below.

Area	Vacancy
Health and Social Care Corporate Communications	1

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