Scottish Government workforce information 2016

Annex A. Data sources and revisions

A 1. The data presented in this publication are taken from information held on the Scottish Government's HR system. When staff are appointed to the Scottish Government, a record is created on the HR system for that person. This record contains a variety of information about the worker including: the type of worker they are, working pattern, and any sickness absence accrued. A voluntary, self-service facility on the HR system also allows staff to update sections of their personal information, including diversity information, or adding diversity information not captured on their appointment. Records are also created for contingent workers on the HR system when they are engaged in any capacity for the Scottish Government, however, limited information is held in this record, since the workers are not Scottish Government employees.

A 2. The HR system is an administrative database. As such, it is continually updated when workers join and leave the Scottish Government and personal details change. As with any large scale administration system, it may be subject to errors with data entry and processing, and short delays in processing changes to the data. This publication presents a "snapshot" of the data as it appears on the HR system at the end of a quarter. Therefore there is a possibility that there may be out of date data or errors presented in this publication, as the "snapshot" may be taken at a point before records are updated or corrected.

A 3. There are no plans to revise any of the snapshots of data from previous quarters in future versions of this publication. Firstly, the number of erroneous records on the HR system will be small compared to the total number of records. Secondly it is difficult to discern whether changes in the data are real changes or corrections of errors, particularly as changes to HR records can be made by a wide number of people: indeed, all staff members can update some fields of their personal records. If there are any significant changes in the data between quarters due to corrections of errors in the HR system, changes in recording practices, operational changes, etc, then these reasons will be given in the publication.