Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
FOI Reference: FOI/202500477423
Date received: 24 July 2025
Date responded: 8 August 2025
Information requested
Request for information 1: In each year since 2020-21, including the current year to date, how many employees at this public body have been suspended with full pay?
Request for information 2: In relation to Q1, what is the respective salary of these employees?
Request for information 3: Please provide as much detail as possible on why these employees were suspended. E.g. Disciplinary issues, poor quality of work etc.
Response
Request for information 1, 2 and 3:
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to all of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party,i.e. given the low numbers of staff who have been suspended on full pay over this period, we are satisfied that there is a realistic prospect that releasing the information risks releasing personal information, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.
However, in order to assist there were five people in total who were suspended with full pay at some point between 2020 and the current date.
The grades ranged from A3 to B2 and the respective pay ranges are attached for that period. In all cases the reason for suspension was due to misconduct.
About FOI
Social Security Scotland is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. The Scottish Government also publishes responses to requests. You can view the responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
FOI 202500477423