FOI/202500462521 · FOI · unclear
In-house lawyers employed by the Scottish Government: FOI release
Information requested
For each year from 2015 until the present year, 2025, please may you tell me:
1. How many in-house lawyers the Scottish Government employs.
2. For each year please tell me the overall salary costs.
3. For each year please provide me with a breakdown of salary bandings ie C3 – 2 people, C1 – 4 people.
Response
Scottish Government only holds information on job titles from the 2017-2018 Financial Year onwards. 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.
We have interpreted questions 2 and 3 to flow from question 1 and have therefore based our responses to question 2 and 3 on “in-house lawyers the Scottish Government employs”.
Information provided relates to Scottish Government Core Directorates only and staff identified are based on the data as at 31 March at the end of the financial year (or 31st December for the 2024-2025 financial year). The information provided for 2024-25 relates to published and verified workforce statistics from December 2024. This means while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not currently have some of the information you have requested from January 2025 to March 2025. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested for the time period January 2025 to March 2025. The next workforce publication as at 31st March 2025 will be published on 10th June 2025.
We changed our method of recording this type of information in October 2024. We now record the detail of the profession framework instead of job titles and the job title list for the previous years has been updated to align with staff now classified as ‘in-house lawyers’. However, prior to October 2024 the job title information was a user entry field and not always competed accurately, making it more challenging to identify those in scope. This may give rise to differences to similar information published in response to previous FOIs.
Response to Question 1 and 3
Mar-18 Mar-19 Mar-20 Mar-21 Mar-22 Mar-23 Mar-24 Dec-24 B3 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 C1 80 116 123 128 134 152 153 140 C2 34 34 38 48 54 55 60 60 C3 6 5 5 6 3 5 5 7 SCS1 8 10 9 9 8 12 14 14 SCS2 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 Total number 129 165 176 193 200 225 233 222
Response to Question 2
Wage Costs in £ 2017-18 6,571,578 2018-19 7,782,640 2019-20 8,725,513 2020-21 10,904,593 2021-22 11,373,385 2022-23 12,789,095 2023-24 14,871,699 April 24 to Dec 24 11,305,039
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.
Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
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. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested for the time period January 2025 to March 2025.
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