Constitution Futures Division staff numbers and funding: FOI release

Information requested

1. Please set out how many civil servants per salary band worked within the Constitution Futures Division at any point for each year including 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

2. Please set out how much SG funding/budget has been allocated to that division’s work for each of those years.

Response

Part 1 - Please set out how many civil servants per salary band worked within the Constitution Futures Division at any point for each year including 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

There is not a particular point in the year when Constitutional Futures Division (CFD) annually records details of its number of staff and their grades. However, it is possible to provide details of what CFD’s number of staff and their grades were at the time a Freedom of Information request is received and as such, at 30 August 2024, details are as follows:

1 SCS Deputy Director, 2 x C3, 5 x C2, 4 x C1, 1 x B3, 2 x B2, 3 x B1

Additionally, the Scottish Government has answered a number of Freedom of Information requests over recent years giving details of the number CFD staff and their grades at the time the request was received and they can be found at:

Preparatory work on referendum on Scottish independence: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Preparations for a second independence referendum: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Preparations and costs of Independence Prospectus: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Independence referendum and prospectus resources: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Constitutional Futures Division: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Proposed Independence Prospectus: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Staff on Independence Prospectus: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Staff working on the proposed independence prospectus: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Independence prospectus staffing structure: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Staffing information regarding independence work: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Staff working on Independence Prospectus: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Civil servants working to develop the proposed independence: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Part 2 – Please set out how much SG funding/budget has been allocated to that division’s work for each of those years.

It is not possible to provide you with an annual figure of the allocated budget for the CFD. This is because budgets are not allocated in that manner to individual divisions. 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.

However, I am able to provide you with details of the salary costs for the division, plus the costs incurred for the publication of the Building a New Scotland series of papers.

It may first of all be helpful to explain that the CFD did not exist until the end of 2019. CFD’s work was paused in March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic started, and all staff were re-deployed to other business areas until the months following the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, when CFD’s work resumed. It is not possible to provide an annual salary figure over this period as CFD did not exist for a full financial year during this time. 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. The Scottish Government has previously published details of CFD’s salary costs for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years, and these can be found at the links below.

Information regarding the Independence Prospectus, Constitutional Futures Division and the Minister for Independence: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Various questions relating to Independence: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Regarding the costs of the Building a New Scotland papers, the Scottish Government has previously published the costs of the thirteen papers in the series, found at the following link:

Building a New Scotland papers: costs - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Preparatory work on additional material within the series has also been undertaken, adding £9,371.45. This brings the total spent on the publication of the BANS papers to £216,418.98.

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.