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As part of the commitment to be an open and transparent government, we promote the disclosure of names and salary details of senior public sector staff. Since October 2010, Scottish non-departmental public bodies have been asked to list the names and salary details of members of their senior leadership teams. You can find links to each body’s website at National public bodies: directory or on the Public Sector pay website at Pay transparency - Public sector pay.

Given the changes in the Scottish Government’s devolved powers over the last decade, it is not possible to apply direct like with like comparisons in Scottish Government funding levels over the past decade, notably due to the addition of around £5.6 billion of funding for devolved social security benefits.

The highest salary currently paid is £240,000 for the Chief Executive of the Scottish National Investment Bank. This is also the figure published in the Bank’s Annual Report 2024. Senior salary information can be found for individual public body’s on their websites. You can find links to each body’s website at National public bodies: directory.

I undertake regular engagement with Scotland’s national education bodies and teaching professional associations at Chief Executive/General Secretary and official level. Details of these engagements are published on the Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts register.

The Scottish Education Exchange Programme is a priority action within Scotland’s International Education Strategy and as such, progress is regularly discussed by IES Governance Group which is chaired by the Minister for HE/FE and includes representatives from colleges and universities. The minutes of these meetings are published online at International Education Strategy Governance Group. Updates to the programme are also published online at Scottish Education Exchange Programme: Test and Learn project - gov.scot and Scottish Education Exchange Programme: - Test and Learn: funded projects - gov.scot

As year 2 of the SEEP comes to a close at the end of March 2025, an external evaluation of the first 2 years of the programme has been commissioned and will be published this summer.

The Scottish Government’s resolute commitment to free tuition means that in Scotland access to university remains based on the ability to learn and not the ability to pay. Through the Scottish Funding Council, we invest over £1.1bn for teaching and research in Scotland’s universities and this investment in university education ensures that Scottish domiciled and international students benefit from the learning provided by our world-class universities in near-record numbers.

The information requested is not held centrally; this is a matter for individual non-departmental public bodies. You can find links to each body’s website at National public bodies: directory - gov.scot where there will be further information.

Non-departmental public bodies devolved to Scotland are operationally independent from Scottish Ministers but are ultimately accountable to Scottish Ministers for their performance. The national public bodies directory contains a full list of non-departmental public bodies and shows the amount of Scottish Government funding they receive. The national directory can be viewed at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/pages/executive-non-departmental-public-bodies/

The Scottish Government continues to identify opportunities to remove unnecessary duplication across the public bodies landscape.

In July 2024, public bodies were asked to provide information to identify opportunities for delivering services in alternative ways and to increase efficiencies across corporate functions. A report of the findings from this commission was published on 15 November 2024, and can be found at Public Bodies Expenditure: Supplementary Report of Data Commission - gov.scot.

A key strand of the Public Service Reform (PSR) programme is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our public services for the people of Scotland. As part of this, we continue to engage with public bodies to progress the programme and deliver long term fiscal sustainability.

The total number of public bodies from 1999 until the present day has been captured in the following table.

Please note that prior to 2010 it was not common practice to capture Executive Agencies, Non-Ministerial Departments, Other Significant National Bodies, or Parliamentary Commissioners & Ombudsmen as part of the list of public bodies. Data prior to 2010 is limited to Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs), Advisory NDPBs, Tribunal NDBs, Health Bodies, Nationalised Industries (no longer used) and Public Corporations. The exception to this was in 2007 when a more extensive collation of public bodies was completed as part of a Simplification Programme. This included all of the aforementioned classifications of public bodies as well as 7 proposed public bodies yet to be established. The inclusion of proposed public bodies yet to be established to the total is unique to 2007.