The Annual Budget allocated to the Scottish Government Minister for independence: FOI release

Information requested

1. The Annual Budget allocated to the Scottish Government Minister for independence.
2. The number of civil servants that are accountable to the Scottish Government Minister for independence.
3. A list of all meetings the Scottish Government Minister for independence has held to date with individuals and or organisations external to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament.
4. The cost spent to date by the portfolio that the Scottish Government Minister for independence is responsible for in regards to preparing independence related information and papers.

Response

1. There is no specific budget allocated to the Minister for Independence.

2. The majority of civil servants are not allocated to work directly for individual Ministers as part of their normal duties in supporting the Scottish Government. One member of staff is currently employed in the Minister’s private office.

3. A list of information held on meetings between the Minister for Independence with individuals and/or organisations external to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament from his appointment to the date of your request is below. You may wish to note that the meeting highlighted in bold was attended in a Ministerial capacity. The other information relates to a meeting that was noted in the Minister's Scottish Government calendar for diary planning purposes only, and was not attended or supported in a Ministerial capacity.

Date	Meeting information
27/04/2023	Briefing on Public Attitudes to the UK’s Democratic System Report - Professor Alan Renwick, UCL
28/04/2023	Business for Scotland Event

4. Information about publication costs for the papers in the Building a New Scotland series published so far can be found on the Scottish Government’s website at the following links:

Written question and answer: s6w-11001 | Scottish Parliament Website

Written question and answer: s6w-11002 | Scottish Parliament Website

Written question and answer: S6W-13303 | Scottish Parliament Website (parlamaid-alba.scot)

It is not possible to provide details of staffing costs or costs of preparing other independence related information because in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded as there is no business need to do that. This is a formal notice under Section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

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.