Total costs to the Scottish Government of the recent referendum ruling in the UK Supreme Court: FOI release

Information requested

• Can you please send me a breakdown of the total costs to the Scottish Government of the recent referendum ruling in the UK Supreme Court.

I would like this to be as inclusive as possible.

I am interested in knowing all costs including but not restricted to:

• a calculation of the cost of all Scottish Government officers time including the amount of time spent by individual officers from the point the process began
• any consultancy costs to the SG whether brought in specifically for this issue or as part of existing contracts
• all administrative costs of the process. This should include all travel costs for officers from the conception of the process to the ruling. Could these travel costs be listed by officer, location of travel
• medium of travel and costs. This should also include all subsistence costs including hotel Accomodation and meals. Please list this again by officer. This should also cover PR costs.

In summary what has doing all this including all the preparation for it cost public funds.

Response

Can you please send me a breakdown of the total costs to the Scottish Government of the recent referendum ruling in the UK Supreme Court.

Some of the information you have requested is available from the Scottish Government website. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. However, in the interests of being helpful, we have provided links to the relevant material below: Independence referendum Supreme Court referral: legal costs - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

a calculation of the cost of all Scottish Government officers time including the amount of time spent by individual officers from the point the process began

A small number of civil servants have been involved in the work in relation to the Lord Advocate’s reference to the Supreme Court, and in relation to the wider work on referendum legislation and other preparations for the proposed referendum, but as civil servants are not required to record the time spent on individual tasks we cannot provide an exact figure.

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.

any consultancy costs to the SG whether brought in specifically for this issue or as part of existing contracts

We have interpreted “consultancy costs” as meaning costs of external legal counsel.

Some of the information you have requested, namely the costs of external legal counsel, is available from the Scottish Government website. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. However, in the interests of being helpful, we have provided links to the relevant material below: Independence referendum Supreme Court referral: legal costs - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

all administrative costs of the process. This should include all travel costs for officers from the conception of the process to the ruling. Could these travel costs be listed by officer, location of travel 

medium of travel and costs. This should also include all subsistence costs including hotel Accomodation and meals. Please list this again by officer. This should also cover PR costs

Some of the information you have requested is included in Annex A of this letter. The information on individual travel and subsistence is a more detailed breakdown of the travel and subsistence category in the link above.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal data of a third party) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested. The reasons why this exemption applies is explained in Annex B of this letter.

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.

FOI - 202200331617 - Annex A-B

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