Response

The Scottish Police Authority has considered your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act (FOISA). The decision has been reviewed by an independent reviewer who was not involved in the original decision-making process.

We can confirm that the original decision is upheld. However, we acknowledge that explanation of why the information is not held by the Authority should have been made clear.

The Authority issued a refusal notice to you on 17 December 2024 in terms of section 17(1) of FOISA. This correctly advised that the information requested is not held by the Authority. This is because of a ‘service back’ arrangement in place between the Authority and Police Scotland.

Police Scotland provides the Authority with a number of service back arrangements which have been in place since the creation of the Authority and Police Scotland in 2013. This includes a human resources and payroll service. As such, all records relating to the remuneration of Authority employees, including salaries and allowances, bonuses, benefits-in-kind (BIK) and pension contributions etc, are held by Police Scotland rather than the Authority. The only information held by the Authority which is relevant to the request has been provided by way of a link to the Authority’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2023/24. As stated in the original response, this information does not represent all employees with a salary over £100k.  

Due to the service back arrangements in place, and under our duty in terms of section 15 of FOISA to provide advice and assistance, we advised that information may be available by contacting Police Scotland at foi@scotland.police.uk