The number of officials working on the policy to deliver free school breakfasts: FOI release

Information requested

Information about the number of officials working on the policy to deliver free school breakfasts to all primary school children by 2026.

1. The number working as of the start of September 2021, September 2022 and September 2023?
2. The titles of the officials working on this policy?
3. The evolution of this policy unit since the 2021 parliamentary election?

Response

The answers to your questions are set out below.

1. The number working as of the start of September 2021, September 2022 and September 2023?

Civil servants operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of the work at any time. Between September 2021 and September 2023, breakfast policy has been a policy function within the School Age Childcare Division and a number of different officials within the Division have worked on this policy at different times under the direction of senior officials. As previously noted, officials may be working on more than one policy priority at any one time, and so it is not possible to quantify this in terms of number of staff. I am therefore unable to provide you with a figure for the total number of staff working on breakfast policy 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 because there is no business need to do this. 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.

2. The titles of the officials working on this policy?

As noted above, a number of different officials have worked on school breakfast policy within the time frame specified. The titles of these officials have been: Policy Officers, Senior Policy Officers, and Team Leaders with oversight from Unit Heads, Deputy Directors and Directors.

3. The evolution of this policy unit since the 2021 parliamentary election?

There is no dedicated ‘unit’ for delivering breakfast policy, it is currently one policy function of the School Age Childcare Division’s ‘Building the System’ unit. This has been the position since the 2021 parliamentary election.

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