Scotland House Brussels premises: FOI release

Information requested

Can you please supply the following information regarding the Scotland House Brussels premises based in Belgium.

Property:

• Is the property owned or rented?
• If owned how much did it cost to purchase?
• If rented how much rent is paid monthly/ annually?
• Can you supply rental figures for the last 10 years?

Staff:

• Your webpage shows that there are 21 staff based there
• Is this number correct?
• What are the salary costs of these people?
• Are they given living expenses when working there?
• Can you supply these staff figures and costs for the last 10 years?

Other running costs

• What are the other running costs for the facilities. Utilities / Insurance / Maintenance?
• Can you supply these running cost figures for the last 10 years?

Purpose:

• How much income does the conference facilities generate?
• Where does this revenue go?
• What are the occupancy figures for the meeting rooms?
• Can you supply these revenue figures and costs for the last 10 years?

Response

Responses correlating to the headings within your query are outlined below.
For all questions, please note that the Scottish Government uses the premises that you have requested information on, in partnership with Scotland Europa Ltd. The following responses provide the available information that is held by the Scottish Government.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

Property

The Scottish Government neither owns or rents a premises in Brussels. The partners of Scotland House Brussels (SHB) are Scotland Europa Ltd and the Scottish Government. Scotland Europa is the leaseholder for this location. The Scottish Government is one of the core partners of SHB and pays a contribution to the annual running costs.

The most recently available figures for the Scottish Government’s contribution to SHB’s office costs are €272,160 and €288,000 for financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively. Older information on historic contributions are not currently held and under Section 12 of FOISA, it would exceed the upper cost limit to create the information.

Staff

Under section 25(1) of the Freedom of information Scotland Act, the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which is otherwise accessible. The following FOI response profiles the latest information on staffing number and costs: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202300351428/

Older information on historic costs are not currently held and under Section 12 of the FOISA act it would exceed the upper cost limit to create the information.

On the question of living expenses, overseas allowances are provided to Scottish Government staff to assist in meeting the costs arising from moving to work overseas and to compensate for additional costs once there. Allowances are based on personal circumstances, follow the framework of overseas allowances provided by FCDO to their diplomatic staff and are included within the budget of each individual international office.

All UK based Scottish Government staff being assigned to and working within one of our overseas offices qualify for specific overseas allowances which are based on their personal circumstances. Country based staff who have been employed locally are not entitled to overseas allowances.

Other running costs / Purpose

As noted, Scotland Europa Ltd are the leaseholder for the premises and as such, information for each of the six questions under this heading is not held by the Scottish Government. This is formal notification under section 17 of FOISA, that we do not hold this information.

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.