Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) Scotland Bill production: FOI release

Information requested

1. How many civil servants are currently working on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill? Please provide this figure for each month since work on the bill began. Please also provide the salary band for each civil servant.

2. What is the total spend on civil servants relating to work on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets (Scotland) Bill? Please provide this figure for each month since work on the bill began.

Response

1. How many civil servants are currently working on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill? Please provide this figure for each month since work on the bill began. Please also provide the salary band for each civil servant.

A Bill team was established in May 2024 to co-ordinate the work across the Scottish Government on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill. The team comprised one C1, one B3 and one B2. The work on the Bill also draws on a range of other officials across the organisation who will contribute to varying extents as part of their wider responsibilities in supporting the Scottish Government.

I am unable to provide you with a figure for the total number of staff contributing to the Bill because 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 because there is no business need to do this. This is a formal notice under Section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

The pay scales for Scottish Government civil servants is available from - Financial rewards - Scottish Government Jobs. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

2. What is the total spend on civil servants relating to work on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill? Please provide this figure for each month since work on the bill began.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide the information you have requested because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information. This is because it is personal data of a third party, specifically the salaries of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

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