Scottish Government Berlin office operations: FOI release

Information requested

Alexandra Stein heads up the Berlin Office of the Scottish Government.

1. What is the role and purposes of that office and Ms Stein?
2. Is there any measure of achievement? For example, a cost effective analysis?
3. What is the salary afforded to Ms Stein?
4. What has been the annual budget for the office for the past 5 years?

Response

1. Ms Stein was succeeded by Ms Catherine Reeves in August 2023. The information you have requested in your first question is available from International offices: Berlin - International relations - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

2. The Scottish Government does not estimate the economic benefit of each of our individual overseas offices. The Scottish Government overseas offices measure activities, output and successes using a range of qualitative data, such as feedback provided by stakeholders, media articles or case studies, and quantitative data such as social media performance, event statistics and investment data. This data allows offices to report against the five shared strategic outcomes (Reputation, International Trade, Research and Innovation, Investment, Scotland’s interests. Additionally colleagues both in Scotland and in our overseas offices across Scottish Government and Scottish Development International contribute together towards trade and investment measures for international sales and jobs. Our offices work across geographies and on a sectoral basis to engage in the wide range of activities which contribute to trade and inward successes. The 2021-2022 Monitoring and Evaluation Report for the Scottish Government’s International Network is available via M&E 2021/2022. The 2022-2023 Monitoring and Evaluation Report is due to be published by the end of the year.

3. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide a small amount of the information you have requested because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information. This is because it is personal data of a third party, specifically the salaries of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

4. Annual budget information for the past 5 years is provided below.

Berlin, Germany	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
£	300,000	549,000	549,000	555,000	572,000	591,000

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