Scottish Government staff who live in England: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for the following information as a follow-up to FOI/202300390842:

1. A breakdown of the “280 number” by pay banding [i.e. relating to the response to your previous request]

2. The same original data for the previous 5 years broken down by year (can take the date used for original request as exact date for data from 2018-2022).

Response

1. I would like to take the opportunity to clarify that the 280 individuals you have referenced from our previous response was overstated and included information that was outwith the scope of your request. Of the 280 figure previously provided, there were 187 civil servants at 27 December 2023 with an ‘English tax code’ [UK Income Tax code] living in England. This represents 1.16% of the headcount figure referenced in our previous FOI response.

The figure in our original response included a number of: Fee Paid (anyone who is paid a day rate for irregular work, for example seasonal potato seed inspectors); retired Pensioners who are paid their pension via the SG payroll system (e.g. Police Commissioners); and a number of staff who, while they have a UK tax code, do not have an address in England. Please accept our apologies for the inclusion of the above data which was outwith the scope of your original request.

Please see below a breakdown of the 187 staff by pay banding:

Pay Banding	No. of staff
<£20,000	3
£20,000 to 29,999	15
£30,000 to 39,999	56
£40,000 to 49,999	43
£50,000 to 59,999	19
£60,000 to 69,999	17
£70,000 to 79,999	21
£80,000 to 89,999	10
over £90,000	3

2. Please see Annex A which contains the requested information for 30 September for the years 2018-2022 which has been compiled for bodies who make up the SG Main Bargaining Unit, as well as those in the Marine Bargaining Unit (i.e. seafarers). These figures are accurate as at September for each year requested, in line with the quarterly official workforce and Cabinet Office statistics workforce returns. Please note that for all information provided, Scottish Government is reliant on HMRC to provide accurate tax codes, based on home addresses.

Applying for a job in the Scottish Government is open to anyone who satisfies the civil service nationality rules which are reserved to the UK Government. As a result, our employment opportunities are not restricted to only those individuals who are resident in Scotland. While the Scottish Government does not explicitly require its staff to live in Scotland in order to work for the organisation, our employment contracts require attendance at Scottish Government offices (the vast majority of workplaces being in Scotland) and if necessary, to relocate to Scotland. Depending on the nature of the role, attendance in a SG workplace is either wholly workplace-based or on a hybrid basis which combines regular workplace attendance with remote working. Travel costs to an individual’s contractual Scottish Government workplace are a personal responsibility.

Given the data provided is simply a data snapshot on a specific date, there may be staff in the process of relocating to Scotland, or who have since moved to Scotland, and their tax code is in the process of being updated by HMRC.

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.

FOI 202400393007 - Information released - Annex A

File type

Excel document

File size

16.7 kB