Scottish Covid Public Inquiry costs
FOI reference: FOI24/25 033
Date received: 22/07/2024
Date responded: 13/08/2024
Information requested
As of the date of this request, please can you tell me the total costs incurred by your organisation in relation to the Scottish Covid 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 Covid public 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 Covid public inquiry.
If possible, please can you provide a breakdown of these costs (such as legal, staffing or the hire of external consultants).
SQA has spent a total of £77,706.14 (plus VAT) in relation to the inquiry. All of this expenditure is legal expense. We have not spent any money on additional staffing nor on 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.
None of this expense has been reimbursed by the public inquiry.
Again, if possible, please provide any details you hold of how much human resource has gone into your Scottish Covid public inquiry commitments (such as the number of staffing hours taken so far or how many officials have worked on the responses).
Under section 17 of the Act, if an authority doesn’t hold information, it should inform the applicant. As there was no requirement to record the information, a record of the number of staff involved or the hours staff spent on SQA’s Scottish Covid public inquiry commitments was not kept, so we are unable to provide that.