Replacing Erasmus costs, First Minister Twitter/X account and correspondence regarding stadium tax: FOI release

Information requested

1. All briefings, analysis, notes, minutes from meetings and all correspondence sent and received, including internally, about Scottish Government plans to replace the Erasmus programme, from between September 1 2023 and the date of this FOI.

2. Could you supply any cost/benefit analysis done about replacing Erasmus, as well as any analysis about how much it could cost?

3. All briefings, analysis, notes, minutes from meetings and all correspondence sent and received, including internally, about plans to introduce a stadium tax, as shown here: https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/11722265/taylor-swift-stadium-tax-murrayfield-gigs-windfallmusic- scene/ From between November 1 2023 and the date of this FOI?

4. How many staff members run the/have access to the official First Minister X account?

5. How many Scottish Government staff work in Edinburgh as a percentage of those overall employed by the government? Include the number as well?

Response

Request 1

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government. It may help if I explain that we file our information according to the subject matter, not by reference to the names of individuals or organisations with whom we have corresponded. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you could specify the subject matter(s) of the correspondence you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website at: https://www.itspublicknowledge.info/how-do-i-ask.

Request 2

I enclose a copy of all the information you requested in a PDF document.

Request 3

I enclose a copy of all the information you requested in a PDF document.

Request 4

The answer to your question is: Five officials within the First Minister Communications Team have duties that include running the official First Minister account on Twitter/X. A total of 62 officials have access to the Scottish Government's corporate accounts on Twitter/X via a secure third party platform, in order to perform a range of duties associated with running those accounts and to provide 24/7 cover. This provides essential resilience in the event of major incidents which require urgent public communication.

Request 5

The answer to your question is: The latest official statistics, Scottish Government workforce information - gov.scot (www.gov.scot), show that at the end of December there were 9,200 directly employed staff in the Scottish Government. Of those 6,245 have an Edinburgh office listed as their contractual working location which is 68%.

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 202400402848 - Information released - Attachments 1 & 2

File type

46 page PDF

File size

2.8 MB