FOI – 2024-000273 Scottish Hospitals Inquiry Costs (HTML)
Date received – 22 July 2024 | Date responded – 20 August 2024
Request
As of the date of this request, please can you tell me the total costs incurred by your organisation in relation to the Scottish Hospitals public inquiry.
If possible, please can you provide a breakdown of these costs (such as legal, staffing or the hire of external consultants).
And please can you tell how much, if any, of this expense has been reimbursed by the public inquiry as per its mechanism for some participants to claim back legal expenses incurred.
Again, if possible, please provide any details you hold of how much human resource has gone into your Scottish Hospitals Inquiry commitments (such as the number of staffing hours taken so far or how many officials have worked on the responses).
Response
As of the date of this request, please can you tell me the total costs incurred by your organisation in relation to the Scottish Hospitals public inquiry.
If possible, please can you provide a breakdown of these costs (such as legal, staffing or the hire of external consultants).
Our legal costs are documented in the table below. All other Scottish Hospital Inquiry is being undertaken as part of routine provision and is not tracked as separate activity.
Below details costs for dedicated staff time which supported the Inquiry response in 2021/22, and for staff hours worked above standard working hours in providing responses to the Inquiry.
SCOTTISH HOSPITALS PUBLIC INQUIRY
- Staff costs
Inquiry response 21/22 (1475 hours) - £40,403.00
Hours worked above standard working hours (665.7 hours) - £70,355.00
- Legal Costs - £1,307,736.23
TOTAL: £1,418,494.23
And please can you tell how much, if any, of this expense has been reimbursed by the public inquiry as per its mechanism for some participants to claim back legal expenses incurred?
No expense has been sought or reimbursed by the Scottish Hospitals Public Inquiry.
Again, if possible, please provide any details you hold of how much human resource has gone into your Scottish Hospitals Inquiry commitments (such as the number of staffing hours taken so far or how many officials have.
NSS does not hold the detail for routine staff provision. As noted above in our response, Scottish Hospitals Inquiry activity is being undertaken as part of routine provision and is not tracked as separate activity. See above table for information held for all other staff costs.
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