Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how many contracts for polling public attitudes his Department has commissioned in Scotland in each of the last three years; and how many of those polls included questions on the (i) constitutional settlement of Scotland and (ii) Scottish independence.
Answered by Lord Jack of Courance
The Office has not commissioned any contracts for polling public attitudes in Scotland in the last three years.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how many staff were employed in his Department who were based in (a) London and (b) Scotland on (i) September 2020 and (ii) 1 April in each year from 2015 to 2020.
Answered by Lord Jack of Courance
The Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland does not employ staff directly. All staff that join do so on an assignment, loan or secondment from other government bodies; principally the Scottish Government and the Ministry of Justice, who remain the employers.
Staff on assignment, loan or secondment from other government bodies to the Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland were based as follows:
Date | London | Scotland |
31 March 2015 | 27 | 44 |
31 March 2016 | 35 | 41 |
31 March 2017 | 34 | 38 |
31 March 2018 | 32 | 42 |
31 March 2019 | 40 | 45 |
31 March 2020 | 34 | 47 |
31 August 2020* | 37 | 48 |
*Data provided from 31 August as nearest recorded information held to the requested dates.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how much his Department spent on salaries for staff based in (a) Scotland and (b) London in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Lord Jack of Courance
The Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland spend on salaries for staff based in Scotland and London in each of the last five financial years is shown below:
| 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 |
| £000 | £000 | £000 | £000 | £000 |
Scotland | 2,137 | 2,326 | 2,309 | 2,690 | 2,849 |
London | 1,612 | 1,708 | 1,817 | 2,016 | 2,421 |
Total | 3,749 | 4,034 | 4,126 | 4,706 | 5,270 |
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what the absence rate was for staff of his Department based in (a) Scotland and (b) London in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Lord Jack of Courance
The Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland does not employ staff directly, all staff that join do so on an assignment, loan or secondment from other government bodies, who remain the employer. All absence is reported to and recorded by the parent employers, who retain and manage the detailed absence data relevant to their staff.
Asked by: Tommy Sheppard (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh East)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what proportion of the cost of the recent refit of Queen Elizabeth House was borne by (a) his Department and (b) HM Treasury.
Answered by Lord Jack of Courance
HMRC is responsible for the construction and fit out of Queen Elizabeth House which will house nearly 3,000 civil servants from over 13 UKG departments.
My department will be responsible for part of the overall running costs of the building, supported by funding from HM Treasury as part of our annual settlement.