Expenses incurred in relation to Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry: FOI release

Information requested

1. The total costs incurred by our organisation in relation to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, and a breakdown of these costs (such as legal, staffing or the hire of external consultants).
2. How much, if any, of this expense has been reimbursed by the public inquiry as per its mechanism for some participants to claim back legal expenses incurred.
3. Any details you held of how much human resource has gone into the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry commitments (such as the number of staffing hours taken so far or how many officials have worked on the responses).

Response

On 30 July 2024, you clarified that you are seeking information on the costs incurred by the Scottish Government in responding to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, and not the costs incurred by the Scottish Government in its role as sponsor of that inquiry. Our Response is as follows:

Question a) The total costs incurred by our organisation in relation to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry public inquiry, a breakdown of these costs (such as legal, staffing or the hire of external consultants).

The Scottish Government has a dedicated team that co-ordinates the Scottish Government’s response to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (the “Response Unit”). The Response Unit was established in 2016. There is also a dedicated team within the Scottish Government Legal Directorate that works with the Response Unit and is funded from the Unit’s budget. Table 1 sets out the total expenditure of the Response Unit (annually and accumulatively) and provides a breakdown of that expenditure in relation to staff and external legal costs.

Other teams across the Scottish Government have been, and continue to be, involved in collaborating with the Response Unit in responding to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.

However, the Scottish Government does not record the amount of time spent by other teams specifically in relation to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. Information is therefore notheld on the cost associated with that.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, the cost of locating, retrieving, and providing information on other costs incurred specifically in relation to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that may be held by other teams would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. That is because this would require the Response Unit to search its records back to 2016, identify everyteam it has engaged with across the Scottish Government, commission those teams (or their successor teams) to search their records to identify any information on other costs that  they may have incurred specifically in relation to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry and then collate that information. 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 cost can be brought below £600. For example, you could specify a time period of the information you are interested in, 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 Step by Step Guidance on this at: Your Rights | Scottish Information Commissioner (foi.scot).

Question b) How much, if any, of this expense has been reimbursed by the public inquiry as per its mechanism for some participants to claim back legal expenses incurred.

The Scottish Government has not been reimbursed by the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry for any of its legal expenses in relation to the Scottish Government’s response to the Inquiry.

Question c) Any details you held of how much human resource has gone into the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry commitments (such as the number of staffing hours taken so far or how many officials have worked on the responses).

Table 2 sets out (as at 31 March of each year from 2016 to 2024) the full time equivalent number of permanent staff who worked in, or were funded from the budget of, the Response Unit; and separately, Table 2 also lists the number of contingent staff who supported the Unit’s work and were funded from its budget. In addition, Senior Civil Servants accountable for the Response Unit and the team within the Scottish Government Legal Directorate that supports that Unit have also worked on responding to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry as part of their broader responsibilities (the number of hours spent by those Senior Civil Servants on responding to the Inquiry has not been recorded).

As noted above, the Scottish Government does not record the amount of time spent by staff in other Scottish Government teams on collaborating with the Response Unit in responding to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. This information is therefore not held.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, the cost of locating, retrieving and providing information on the total number of staff within other teams across the Scottish Government, who have been involved in collaborating with the Response Unit in responding to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. That is because this would require the Response Unit to search its records back to 2016, identify every staff member across the Scottish Government that it has engaged between then and July 2024, and collate that information.You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the cost can be brought below £600. You may find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s Step by Step Guidance on this (a link to that guidance is provided above).

Table 1 below provides a summary of the expenditure of the Scottish Government’s Response Unit to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry from 1 April 2016 to 31 July 2024. This responds to question a). Note that ‘Staffing Costs’ is the total cost of permanent and contingent staff either working in the Response Unit or funded from its budget.

Table 1
Period		Total Expenditure During this Period	Accumulative Total Expenditure	Staffing Costs During this Period	External Legal Costs During this Period
1 April 2016 - 31 March 2017		£181,855.84	£181,855.84	£149,350.58	£1,755.00
1 April 2017 - 31 March 2018		£786,317.08	£968,172.92	£606,713.08	£96,033.13
1 April 2018 - 31 March 2019		£1,037,526.93	£2,005,699.85	£829,003.42	£36,520.00
1 April 2019 - March 2020	31	£1,223,941.16	£3,229,641.01	£1,169,653.90	£31,412.10
1 April 2020 - March 2021	31	£1,364,534.74	£4,594,175.75	£1,110,470.02	£249,102.13
1 April 2021 - March 2022	31	£1,220,854.61	£5,815,030.36	£1,032,010.95	£165,999.98
1 April 2022 - March 2023	31	£1,255,742.33	£7,070,772.69	£1,199,873.93	£40,349.19
1 April 2023 - March 2024	31	£1,207,647.54	£8,278,420.23	£1,160,691.47	£42,680.40
1 April 2024 - 31 July 2024		£368,696.87	£8,647,117.10	£367,352.68	£877.20

Table 2 below lists the full-time equivalent number of permanent staff and number of contingent staff who worked in the Scottish Government’s Response Unit to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry or the team in the Scottish Government Legal Directorate funded by that Unit, in the period from 31 March 2016 to 31 March 2024. It should be noted that the information in this table reflects how staffing information was recorded at the time in the Scottish Government’s HR system, which did not always assign a staff member to a particular Unit; lists of staff assigned at relevant Directorate/Divisional levels were checked for the purposes of compiling this table and whilst best endeavours have been made to provide full and accurate information, it is possible that some staff could have been missed from this table. This responds to question c).

Table 2
Year	Full Time Equivalent Staff	Contingent Staff Headcount
31 March 2016	3	0
31 March 2017	4.8	1
31 March 2018	8	4
31 March 2019	9.2	6
31 March 2020	16.8	6
31 March 2021	10.1	8
31 March 2022	18	4
31 March 2023	15	3
31 March 2024	12.4	2

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