Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
FOI Reference: FOI/202300372955
Date received: 24 August 2023
Date responded: 20 September 2023
Request
Please can we request the following information under Freedom of Information regulations:
Request for Information 1: How many new permanent hires joined your organisation in 2022?
Request for Information 2: How many new permanent hires came through external providers in 2022?
Request for Information 3: How many team members work in your Recruitment Team?
Request for Information 4: What is your time to hire from adverting to onboarding?
Request for Information 5: What was your attrition rate in 2022?
Request for Information 6: What is your average cost per hire (including attraction and screening) in 2022?
Request for Information 7: How much did you spend with external providers of permanent recruitment in 2022?
Request for Information 8: How many unique agency contractors/temps/interims did you use in 2022?
Request for Information 9: How much did you spend on agency contractors/temps/interims in 2022?
Request for Information 10: Are you meeting your diversity targets? (yes or no)
Request for Information 11: How many candidates applied for roles in 2022? What is your candidate drop-out rate?
Request for Information 12: Which systems do you use for your permanent recruitment process?
Response to your request
Request for Information 1:
2,222 new permanent hires joined Social Security Scotland in 2022.
Request for information 2:
Social Security Scotland are part of the UK civil service and are governed by the civil service commission for all external recruitment activity. The requirements for all appointments to be made is that they are based on merit through fair and open recruitment. Therefore 0 permanent hires came through external providers in 2022.
Request for information 3:
As of August 2023, 27 people work in Social Security Scotland’s Resourcing team.
Request for information 4:
Our average time to hire (advertising to offer) across all campaigns between August 2022 and July 2023 was 62 days.
Request for information 5:
To answer this question we have interpreted ‘attrition rate’ to be what we calculate as ‘turnover’, which in 2022 was 6.0%. We define turnover as being the number of directly employed Social Security Scotland employees that have left the Scottish Government (including agencies and non departmental public bodies) as a proportion of the average directly employed headcount over the year.
Request for information 6:
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested. Cost per hire is a complex calculation, Social Security Scotland do not hold the information for the time period requested.
Request for information 7:
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested. Social Security Scotland do not use external providers to provide permanent recruitment or appoint candidates as part of the recruitment process.
Request for information 8:
435.
Request for information 9:
For Calendar year 2022 Social Security spend on contractors/ temps/ interims was £19.2 million.
Request for information 10:
The Scottish Government or any of the Executive Agencies or Delivery Bodies do not set diversity targets. We conform with the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles and hold all permanent recruitment through fair and open competition.
Request for information 11:
Social Security Scotland received 21,052 applications for various roles across this time period. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Social Security Scotland does not have the information you have requested, drop-out rate was not a metric which was tracked.
Request for information 12:
Social Security Scotland as an executive agency of the Scottish Government, share a number of corporate systems. This includes systems used for recruitment activities.
About FOI
Social Security Scotland is committed to publishing responses to requests. The Scottish Government also publishes responses to requests. You can view the responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.