Chamber and committees

The information requested is shown in the following table and refers to temporary staff employed directly in the Scottish Executive core departments.

Temporary Staff in Scottish Executive Core Departments as at 1 April of Each Year

Year	All Temporary Staff
1999	153
2000	93
2001	95
2002	178
2003	109
2004	71
2005	52

 

The information requested is shown in the following tables and refers to temporary staff employed directly in the Scottish Executive core departments at 1 April of each year.

Table 1, Temporary Staff Employed by the Scottish Executive at 1 April 1999

	Band A	Band B	Band C	Senior Civil Service
Total	128	21	3	1
% of total workforce in payband	7.6%	1.3%	0.6%	0.6%
Location
Ayr	1	2	.	.
Dumfries	1	2	.	.
Dundee	3	.	.	.
Edinburgh	109	9	3	1
Elgin	1	.	.	.
Galashiels	1	.	.	.
Glasgow	4	.	.	.
Gullane	1	.	.	.
Inverurie	2	5	.	.
Lerwick	1	.	.	.
London	2	.	.	.
Inverness	.	1	.	.
Perth	.	1	.	.
Stirling	1	1	.	.
Stornoway	1	.	.	.
Thurso	1	.	.	.

 

Table 2, Temporary Staff Employed by the Scottish Executive at 1 April 2000

	Band A	Band B	Band C
Total	55	32	6
% of total workforce in payband	3.4%	1.8%	1.0%
Location			.
Dumfries	3	3	.
Dundee	3	.	.
Edinburgh	29	5	5
Galashiels	1	2	.
Glasgow	1	.	1
Hamilton	1	1	.
Inverness	1	.	.
Inverurie	2	10	.
Kirkwall	1	1	.
London	2	.	.
Oban	1	2	.
Perth	2	2	.
Portree	.	1	.
Stirling	4	2	.
Thurso	1	.	.

 

Table 3, Temporary Staff Employed by the Scottish Executive at 1 April 2001

	Band A	Band B	Band C
Total	51	37	7
% of total workforce in payband	3.2%	2.0%	1.2%
Location
Ayr	18	1	.
Dumfries	2	6	.
Dundee	1	.	.
Edinburgh	17	13	6
Elgin	1	.	.
Galashiels	4	2	.
Glasgow	1	5	1
Gullane	1	.	.
Hamilton	.	1	.
Inverness	2	1	.
Inverurie	2	1	.
Lerwick	.	1	.
Oban	1	.	.
Perth	.	2	.
Portree	.	1	.
Stirling	1	2	.
Thurso	.	1	.

 

Table 4, Temporary Staff Employed by the Scottish Executive at 1 April 2002

	Band A	Band B	Band C	Senior Civil Service
Total	97	74	6	1
% of total workforce in payband	5.9%	3.6%	1.0%	0.6%
Location
Ayr	27	6	.	.
Dumfries	5	6	.	.
Dundee	2	.	.	.
Edinburgh	41	37	6	1
Galashiels	4	1	.	.
Glasgow	1	14	.	.
Gullane	1	.	.	.
Inverness	7	2	.	.
Inverurie	8	3	.	.
Perth	1	2	.	.
Portree	.	1	.	.
Stirling	.	1	.	.
Stornoway	.	1	.	.

 

Table 5, Temporary Staff Employed by the Scottish Executive at  1 April 2003

	Band A	Band B	Band C
Total	39	62	8
% of total workforce in payband	2.5%	2.8%	1.2%
Location
Ayr	4	1	.
Dumfries	1	5	.
Dundee	2	.	.
Edinburgh	26	32	8
Galashiels	1	4	.
Glasgow	2	3	.
Gullane	1	.	.
Hamilton	.	1	.
Inverness	1	.	.
Inverurie	.	9	.
Kirkwall	1	.	.
Perth	.	4	.
Portree	.	2	.
Thurso	.	1	.

 

Table 6, Temporary Staff Employed by the Scottish Executive at 1 April 2004

	Band A	Band B	Band C
Total	20	48	3
% of total workforce in payband	1.3%	2.1%	0.5%
Location
Ayr	2	2	.
Dumfries	1	5	.
Edinburgh	5	22	3
Elgin	2	.	.
Galashiels	1	2	.
Glasgow	1	2	.
Hamilton	.	2	.
Inverness	3	3	.
Inverurie	1	2	.
Kirkwall	.	1	.
Perth	4	3	.
Portree	.	3	.
Thurso	.	1	.

 

Table 7, Temporary Staff Employed by the Scottish Executive at 1 April 2005

	Band A	Band B	Band C
Total	21	29	2
% of total workforce in payband	1.5%	1.2%	0.3%
Location
Ayr	7	2	.
Dumfries	2	7	.
Edinburgh	6	11	2
Elgin	.	1	.
Galashiels	2	.	.
Hamilton	.	1	.
Inverurie	2	2	.
Perth	.	4	.
Portree	.	1	.
Thurso	2	.	.

 

Where the need for staffing is short term or for a defined period, the hiring of temporary staff for fixed term assignments is one of the options that may be considered under the Scottish Executive’s Resourcing policy.

Recruitment of all, including temporary, staff is in accordance with the rules and principles set out in the Civil Service Management Code (CSMC), and in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Code (CSCRC).

Under the Scottish Executive’s Relocation policy 507 public service jobs have been relocated to rural Scotland. The relocation of job opportunities to Scotland’s more rural areas includes:

Tiree (Croft House Grant Scheme, eight posts);

Kinlochleven (Scottish Executive’s Central Enquiry Unit, nine posts);

Dumfries (NHS Central Registrar, 17 posts);

Inverness (Scottish Natural Heritage, 245 posts);

Galashiels (Scottish Public Pensions Agency, 218 posts), and

Dingwall and Tain (Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, six and four posts).

The Executive has been liaising with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) about developments and I know that Lord Hunt, the UK minister responsible for the Health and Safety Commission and Executive (HSC/E), has recently written to The Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation (SNIPEF) encouraging it to make good use of the position it holds on the CORGI Council to raise the matters that concern the federation. He has also confirmed that it is not for ministers or the HSC/E to intervene between CORGI and its members. My officials will continue their contact with HSE on this matter.

The material that was placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre is an exact copy of what was sent to the correspondents and we have no plans to alter or extract anything from these. However, a copy of the subsequent letter that was sent to the Scottish and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation in response to their assertion that we had provided factually incorrect information in our reply to Mr McIver, has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 36996).

The Scottish Executive does not hold such information. The Gas Work Notification Scheme is for CORGI, its council and members to decide upon. The information may be available direct from CORGI who can be contacted at 1 Elmwood, Chineham Park, Crockford Lane, Basingstoke, Hants, RG24 8WG.

Information received from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) suggested that SNIPEF, as a member of the CORGI Council, was as fully engaged as other interested parties when CORGI announced the scheme in August 2004. Officials took this to mean that they had been consulted. Following SNIPEF’s letter to us pointing out that our response to Mr McIver of John Fulton (Plumbers) Ltd provided factually incorrect information, my officials wrote to SNIPEF. They apologised for any confusion caused by the earlier response and pointed out that it was never the intention to mislead or misinform Mr McIver. We wanted to be helpful given Mr McIver’s concern that no responses had been received from the Health and Safety Commission (HSC), HSE or CORGI to earlier correspondence from SNIPEF.

We have already responded to the letters from Mr McIver, John Home Robertson MSP and Nora Radcliffe MSP and copies have been placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 36395).

We made no response to the letter from Mike Weir. It was transferred to the Health and Safety Executive for answer.

Mr J V S McIver of John Fulton (Plumbers) Ltd wrote to the First Minister on 18 February 2005.

John Home Robertson MSP wrote on behalf of Ms Catherine Thacker of Bathroom World (Lothian) on 21 February 2005.

Nora Radcliffe MSP wrote on behalf of Gordon A Campbell, Managing Director of Camwater Ltd on 16 February 2005.

Mike Weir MP wrote to Nigel Griffiths MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry on behalf of J M Guild of Forfar and other plumbing companies and individual plumbers on 18 March 2005. This correspondence was transferred from Mr Griffith’s office to us for response, presumably because the company that Mr Weir was writing on behalf of was Scottish based. We did not respond to this case but transferred it to the Health and Safety Executive for response.