Scottish Government posts advertised but never filled: FOI release

Information requested

• A list of jobs advertised by the Scottish Government and its associated quangos over the last three financial years that were never filled.
• The cost of advertising for each of these positions.
• A breakdown by job title, department, and quango where applicable.
• Can I please have this in an Excel sheet if possible.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested, in the Excel format required.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have requested.

We cannot provide:

• Information on unfilled vacancies for other public bodies and agencies
• Specific costs attributable to unfilled vacancies

The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below:

The Scottish Government does not hold recruitment data for all public bodies and agencies operating in Scotland.

The Scottish Government Resourcing Team does engage with, and support a number of public sector organisations, including provision of shared recruitment systems. Where information for other public organisations may be held in shared systems, we are not the owner of this data and therefore cannot disclose it. In response to your request, we have provided the information available which can be shared - this includes a breakdown of the unfilled vacancies advertised by the Scottish Government over the past three years.

You may wish to contact the public bodies and agencies based in Scotland to request their recruitment data directly.

You can find a directory of current public bodies and agencies available on the gov.scot website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/pages/introduction/

The Scottish Government cannot provide information on the costs specifically associated with unfilled vacancies as we do not hold this data.

Additional context on the information provided for unfilled vacancies, and the reasons we do not hold associated costs for these positions has been included for clarity below.

About the information provided: unfilled vacancies

The Scottish Government regularly advertise vacancies where there are multiple positions available. For the purposes of this response, we have included all vacancies where multiple positions were advertised and one or more of the positions remained unfilled. The total number of positions advertised and the number of posts unfilled have been included for reference.

The Excel file provided includes information on Scottish Government A-C grade and Senior Civil Service positions which were externally advertised over the past 3 years, including job titles. The Scottish Government structure is based on 8 Director General (DG) areas instead of departments, information on the DG area for each role has been included to provide context on the location of posts. You can find out more information about the structure of government on the Gov.scot website: https://www.gov.scot/about/how-government-is-run/

Numbers of unfilled internal-only positions have not been included - these vacancies were not advertised externally and have attracted no associated cost. Positions which were advertised as internal posts but were also open to applicants from other government departments have been included, as these are routinely advertised on Civil Service Jobs.

You can find this information detailed in the spreadsheet provided.

About advertising costs

We have not been able to provide the cost for unfilled vacancies as we do not hold this data. This is due to the procurement method used, systems in place and records held. Further information on how advertising is commissioned has been included below.

Advertising is commissioned in two different ways:

1. The Scottish Government Resourcing Team procure advertising services from two different platforms as standard for external vacancies (Civil Service Jobs and LinkedIn). These platforms are used by both Scottish Government and the partner organisations we support.

Costs for advertising services are agreed in advance for 12 months provision of services and are not charged on a per job basis - this represents a more cost-effective approach, based on volumes. Costs for these services represent the total cost for all advertising, including the cost for both filled and unfilled vacancies. As costs are agreed in advance, there is no change in the billed total based on whether roles are filled or unfilled. It is therefore not possible to determine the costs of advertising which is attributable only to the positions which were unfilled.

2. The Scottish Government, public bodies and agencies can also commission additional targeted advertising for vacancies which are required to attract a significant volume of applications (such as graduate schemes or cases where there are large numbers of positions to fill) or where there are hard to fill roles (typically those which require highly specialist skills, or those for which market demand is high). Additional advertising is only commissioned where there is evidence to indicate the use of standard channels is unlikely to result in successfully filled positions.

This type of advertising is commissioned via a procurement framework which is also used for the issuing of public information notices, such as road closures. You can view details of the framework on Gov.scot at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/procurement-recruitment-advertising-and-public-noticesframework- 2024-2/

Spending via this framework is recorded through finance systems which are separate from our recruitment systems. As finance and recruitment records are held on different systems and vacancy numbers are not captured on purchase records, it is not possible to identify the costs related to specific vacancies, and therefore further identify advertising attributable only to positions that were unfilled.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500447588 - Information Released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

27.8 kB