Migration to Scotland after independence paper: FOI release

Information requested

Information regarding the Migration to Scotland after independence paper. Can I please request the following information?

1. How many civil servants worked on the paper?

2. How much money was spent on the paper? Can this be broken down into staffing costs, alongside printing and other costs etc.

3. Was any advice from outside the civil service used to develop the paper? If so, could this information be provided?

Response

1. The Scottish Government does not have a figure for the total number of staff involved with the production of “Migration to Scotland after independence”. All papers in the Building a New Scotland series are being co-ordinated by the Scottish Government’s Constitutional Futures Division however, they also draw upon colleagues from across the organisation who contribute to this work as part of their normal duties supporting the Scottish Government. 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 this. This is a formal notice under S.17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

2. For the reasons set out in response to question 1, the Scottish Government does not hold any information regarding the staffing costs for the production of “Migration to Scotland after independence”. This is a formal notice under S.17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

Details of the publication costs for “Migration to Scotland after independence” can be found at the link below.

Written question and answer: S6W-22829 | Scottish Parliament Website

3. The Scottish Government did not receive any advice from external stakeholders in connection with the development of this publication. You may however, find it helpful to note that all Building a New Scotland publications are evidence based, with footnotes giving details of the sources of underpinning evidence. Details of the external sources of evidence used in the production of “Migration to Scotland after independence”, all of which was already freely available, can be found on pages 58 – 61 of the paper.

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.