Notes & definitions

General notes

• Percentages are shown rounded to one decimal place. For this reason, columns or rows may not sum to 100%.

• PNTS stands for “Prefer not to say”. Individuals have the option of selecting not to declare which group they belong to for questions that are not mandatory.

Explanation of shorthand

Some of the charts and tables in this publication contain shorthand instead of missing values.

• [c]: This symbol appears where data is missing due to suppression of confidential information. See the section on suppression below for more information.
• [x]: This symbol appears where data is not available. In this publication, it appears where comparator data for a particular characteristic has not been provided.

Bodies covered by this report

This publication provides diversity information for the following bodies:

• Scottish Government Core Directorates General:

  • Directorate General - Communities;
  • Directorate General - Corporate;
  • Directorate General - Economy;
  • Directorate General - Education and Justice;
  • Directorate General - Health and Social Care;
  • Directorate General - Net Zero;
  • Directorate General - Strategy and External Affairs; and
  • Directorate General - Scottish Exchequer.

• Scottish Government Exectuive Agencies:

  • Accountant in Bankruptcy;
  • Disclosure Scotland;
  • Education Scotland;
  • Scottish Public Pensions Agency;
  • Social Security Scotland;
  • Student Awards Agency for Scotland; and
  • Transport Scotland.

• Non-Ministerial Departments:

  • Food Standards Scotland;
  • National Record of Scotland;
  • Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator;
  • Revenue Scotland; and
  • Scottish Housing Regulator.

Declaration rates

The diversity questions in eHR (the Scottish Government’s HR portal), People Survey and Vacancies Online are not mandatory (except age and sex in eHR). Individuals have the option not to answer questions or to select “Prefer not to say”. For the purpose of calculating declaration rates, anyone who has answered the question is included, including a “Prefer not to say” response.

Sex & gender

• The data on sex comes from systems that were in place before the publication of guidance from the Chief Statistician.

• Staff selecting a sex of PNTS in eHR have been removed from breakdowns of sex for disclosure control purposes.

• People Survey data reports on gender rather than sex. Here, gender is derived from a combination of questions about sex assigned at birth and the free-text responses specifying current gender identity for respondents indicating that their sex assigned at birth does not match their current gender. The “Other” category includes all respondents indicating that their gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth and is unable to be categorised as either “Female” or “Male”.

Management information of current and former staff (eHR)

• Some of the data presented in this publication are taken from management information held on the Scottish Government’s HR system. When staff are appointed to the Scottish Government, a record is created on the HR system for that person. The HR system is an administrative database. As such, it is continually updated when workers join and leave the Scottish Government and personal details change. As with any large scale administration system, it may be subject to errors with data entry and processing and to short delays in processing changes to the data.

• The data presented in this publication are taken from “snapshots” of the data as it appears on the HR system at the end of a quarter. Therefore, there is a possibility that there may be some out of date data or errors presented in this publication, as the “snapshot” may be taken at a point before records are updated or corrected.

Headcount & temporary promotion data

• The headcount of SG Core staff are the numbers of directly-employed paid staff as at 31 December 2023 according to eHR. Directly-employed staff consists of staff working on a permanent contract, fixed-term appointment or modern apprenticeship. Contractors, employment agency staff etc. are not included, nor are staff on an unpaid absences including an unpaid maternity, adoption or shared parental leave, an unpaid long-time sickness absence or a career break.

• Data on an individual’s disability status, ethnic group, marital status, religion or beliefs, and sexual orientation are self-reported on eHR, while data on age and sex are gathered during the recruitment process.

• Temporary promotions in this report consist of staff on Temporary Responsibilty Supplement (TRS) to pay bands A to C and staff on Temporary Promotion (TP) to Senior Civil Service positions (including C band staff on Temporary Promotion).

• In some of the tables, a number of categories with small numbers have been grouped to reduce the need for suppression. The groupings used are as follows:

  • Ethnic group - the ethnic minority group consists of the African, Caribbean or Black; Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British; Mixed or Multiple Ethnic Group; and Other Ethnic Group categories.
  • Religion - the Christian group consists of Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic and Other Christian. The Any Other Religion group consists of Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Sikh and any other non-Christian religions.
  • Sexual orientation - the LGB+ group consists of individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or any other sexual orientation not including straight/heterosexual.

Recruitment data

• Recruitment data relates to all applications in 2023 coming through Vacancies Online and includes only applications made for jobs advertised from the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication. This includes jobs that are advertised centrally but where successful applicants may be working in another Scottish Government body. Vacancies advertised by other Scottish Government bodies are not included.

• Applicants who applied for more than one position are counted once for each application. Each application by a single applicant is counted separately, as they may have reached different stages in different applications. The data on diversity characteristics reflects the information disclosed during the most recent application made by that individual using the same account (hence applicant ID) for each application.

• Applicants not currently working for the Scottish Government cannot easily be separated from existing employees, as existing employees can apply for jobs advertised through the external portal.

• There are five stages to the recruitment system included in the charts above. They are as follows:

  1. Applied: An application has been submitted. This does not include applications that were partially completed or unfinished.
  2. Successful at sift: The initial sift determines whether the applicant is meets any eligibility requirements and evaluates their responses to questions. The applicant is then offered an interview if they pass the sift.
  3. Attended interview: The applicant was successful at the initial sift, was offered an interview and attended that interview.
  4. Offer extended: The applicant attended the interview they were offered and was offered the position they applied for. This does not include staff added to a waitlist who don’t get an offer at a later stage.
  5. Offer accepted: The applicant received a job offer and accepted it. This doesn’t always lead to a filled position, as the successful applicant may withdraw their acceptance at a later stage before their first day in post.

• The data includes some campaigns that have not been closed, as applications received near the end of 2023 may not have progressed completely through the recruitment process. As such, the numbers at each stage of the recruitment process should not be used to calculate the proportion of applicants that proceed between stages.

• In some of the tables, a number of categories with small numbers have been grouped to reduce suppression. The groupings used are as follows:

  • Ethnic group - the ethnic minority group consists of the African, Caribbean or Black; Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British; Mixed or Multiple Ethnic Group; and Other Ethnic Group categories.
  • Religion - the Christian group consists of Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic and Other Christian. The Any Other Religion group consists of Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Sikh and any other non-Christian religions.
  • Sexual orientation - the LGB+ group consists of individuals identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or any other sexual orientation not including straight/heterosexual.

Turnover data

• Joiners are defined as staff who were not employed by the Scottish Government or its agencies, non-departmental public bodies or other bodies on 01 January 2023 and had a position in one of the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication on 31 December 2023.

• Leavers are defined as staff who move from a position in one of the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication on 01 January 2023 to not being employed by the Scottish Government or its agencies, non-departmental public bodies or other bodies on 31 December 2023.

• Data on the diversity of leavers is taken from the latest data as at 31 December 2023.

• Data on the diversity of joiners is taken from the latest data as at 31 December 2023. Many joiners have not completed their diversity data within their first year in post. As such, there is a higher rate of uncertainty on the breakdown of joiners by disability status, ethnic group, religion and sexual orientation than in the headcount or leavers data.

Sickness absence

• Average working days lost per staff year (AWDL) is defined as the total number of working days lost over 2023 divived by the number of staff years.

• Only working days are counted, so calculations exclude weekends and public and privilege holidays from the period of sickness.

• A staff year takes into account part-time working and if a member of staff only worked part of a year. A full time member of staff in post for the whole year period is assigned a staff year of 1. If a part-time member of staff works half of the number of hours in a standard 37 hour week, their staff year would be 0.5. If that member of staff only worked half of the year period, for example, they were recruited part way through the period, then their staff year would be halved further, to give a staff year of 0.25.

Promotions data

• Staff marked as being promoted are defined as staff who had a position in one of the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication on 01 January 2023 and had a position in one of the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication at a higher pay grade on 31 December 2023. This does not include staff who received a promotion in another Scottish Government body or were promoted from another Scottish Government body to one of the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication.

• Staff marked as not being promoted are defined as staff who had a position in one of the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication on 01 January 2023 and had a position in one of the Scottish Government bodies covered by this publication at the same pay grade on 31 December 2023. These don’t need to be the same position; a lateral move doesn’t count as a promotion here.

• Diversity data for staff by promotion status are taken from the latest data as at 01 January 2023. A small number of staff may fall into a different category at that stage than when they were promoted, e.g. an older age bracket or a change in disability status.

Average pay and pay gap

Average pay is calculated across the SG Main (SGM), SG Marine and SCS (Senior Civil Service) pay groups, which consists of:

• Core Directorates General of the Scottish Government:

  • Directorate General - Communities;
  • Directorate General - Corporate;
  • Directorate General - Economy;
  • Directorate General - Education and Justice;
  • Directorate General - Health and Social Care;
  • Directorate General - Net Zero;
  • Directorate General - Scottish Exchequer; and
  • Directorate General - Strategy and External Affairs.

• Agencies and Non-Ministerial Offices

  • Accountant in Bankruptcy;
  • Disclosure Scotland;
  • Education Scotland;
  • Food Standards Scotland;
  • National Records of Scotland;
  • Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator;
  • Revenue Scotland;
  • Scottish Fiscal Commission;
  • Scottish Housing Regulator;
  • Scottish Public Pensions Agency;
  • Social Security Scotland;
  • Student Awards Agency for Scotland; and
  • Transport Scotland Fiscal Commission.

Staff serving elsewhere on assignment, loan or secondment are regarded as being part of SGM, SG Marine or SCS except where provision has been agreed for other terms and conditions to apply.

People Survey

• The annual Civil Service People Survey looks at civil servants’ attitudes to, and experience of working in government departments. More information, including data and reports at a UK-wide level, can be found on the Civil Service People Survey Hub.

Suppression

• Where there are fewer than 5 individuals with a given set of characteristics, that number or the corresponding percentage have been suppressed for confidentiality purposes, represented by [c] in that table or chart.

• We do not typically suppress cells where the underlying number is zero.

• Where a characteristic is not considered disclosive (e.g. “Prefer not to say” or “Unknown”), primary suppression is not usually performed.

• Secondary suppression is also performed to ensure suppressed figures can’t be recalculated.

• Where possible, groups have been merged to reduce suppression.

• For People Survey questions, groups with fewer than 10 respondents have been suppressed. If secondary suppression is required, we prioritise suppressing those who do not answer that question (denoted in the tables accompanying this publication as “Unknown”). These respondents are not included in the charts in this publication.

Significance

• Some figures are described as being significantly (i.e. \(p<0.05\)) or highly significantly (i.e. \(p<0.001\)) higher or lower than a comparison. This can be interpreted as a measure of how unlikely a change from the comparison could be explained by chance or random factors and is calculated via a logistic regression model.

• Statistically significant figures are highlighted by up (↑) or down (↓) arrows. Two arrows next to a single figure indicates a higher level of statistical significance.

• Figures may also be highlighted with a green or red background to indicate whether the change is favourable or unfavourable for that group. The higher level of significance is indicated by highlighting the data in dark green or dark red. This colour-coding is currently only present for People Survey results.

Comparators

• Scotland’s population breakdowns for age & sex have been taken from the 2021 mid-year population estimates, where the population is taken as individuals aged between 16 and 64 inclusive

• Scotland’s population breakdowns for disability status, ethnic group, religion & sexual orientation have been taken from the Scottish Survey Core Questions 2019, where the population is taken as individuals aged between 16 and 64 inclusive.

• Scotland’s economically active population breakdown has been taken from the Annual Population Survey 2021 through the Scotland’s Labour Market: People, Places and Regions - Protected Characteristics report. As the age categories in our systems and the economically active population do not overlap, we have chosen not to include the economically active population breakdown by age here.

Intersectional analysis

This publication does not contain any breakdowns by two or more protected characteristics simultaneously (e.g. headcount by age and sex). For most combinations of characteristics, one or more groups will be suppressed due to small numbers. There is also a greater risk of disclosure of sensitive information through differencing across years.