FOI 25-050 Reduced Working Week Payments

Freedom of Information Request

Reference

FOI 25-050 Reduced Working Week Payments

Request Date

30 Jan 2025

Response Date

19 Feb 2025

Information Requested

Under FOI, could you please provide me with all costs incurred by your health board in overtime payments
as a result of the reduced working week (RWW) introduced on April 1 last year, to date. Can you also please
tell me, by headcount, how many staff are currently still to receive their RWW reduction (i.e they are still
working 37.5 hours) When announcing the reduced working week the Scottish Government stated: "If, due
to service pressures, safe staffing or wellbeing issues, it is not possible for a staff member to receive their 30
minute reduction they will be recompensed accordingly, until such times as the reduction can be
accommodated." Can you please provide me with the total figure for payments made to staff, specifically
due to the introduction of the RWW, in cases where it was deemed a 30 minute reduction was not possible. I
understand there is a specific code used for overtime payments, and/or excess part time hours, for RWW
payments as opposed to other overtime payments. It is this total figure I would like, not the total overtime
bill incurred for all reasons. Please provide the total figure incurred to date. Please indicate the period for
which this applies (E.g April to December 24/January 25, etc.)

Response

It is not possible to identify overtime costs attributable solely to the Reduced Working Week (RWW) due to
a number of other factors that would drive the requirement for overtime. It is for this reason we have
applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as information not held.

3319 staff are still working 37.5 hours (pro-rata for part time staff) on a week-to-week basis however they
have been allocated reduced working week accrued hours on a cumulative basis to take this time back
across the year. A number, for example, consolidate these into 1 or 2 days at a time. SAS have agreed that
all staff who are entitled to these accrued hours will have utilised them by March 2025.

For these roles within the Scottish Ambulance Service, which are predominately rostered staff, in which the
30-minute weekly reduction was not immediately possible, staff are taking this time back through 'RWW
Accrued Hours', and this is planned time off from a future shift. Individual staff are therefore not being paid
this additional 30 minutes per week as an overtime/excess part time hours payment.

There will be a small number of payments made to staff leavers who have been unable to utilise their
entitled accrued hours before they terminated their employment. To provide this figure we would be
required to look at each leaver and any payments received and apply complex skill and judgement to what
each payment relates to. It is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information
Scotland Act 2002 as information not held