Chamber and committees

The salary information relating to the Chief Operating Officer appointment is personally confidential information pertaining to an employee of Abellio ScotRail Ltd.

Once the Chief Operating Officer becomes a public sector employee and in line with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, details of the Chief Operating Officer’s remuneration will be published in due course within Scottish Rail Holdings’ year end accounts. These accounts will be published on Transport Scotland’s website once audited and laid before Parliament.

Referrals of this nature to the European Commission can only be made by the member state.

We have considered the compliance and disclosure risks associated with significant and complex transactions. This includes the high-profile interventions that the Scottish Government has supported in recent years as outlined in 2020-21 Annual Accounts.

These transactions have been reviewed and, on the basis of information available it remains the case that there was no state aid present in any of the transactions. We have also obtained assurances in respect of the appropriate recognition and disclosure of contingent liabilities.

In line with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, details of the Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Rail Holdings, remuneration will be published in due course within Scottish Rail Holdings’ year end accounts. These accounts will be published on Transport Scotland’s website once audited and laid before Parliament.

In facilitating the sale and purchase of the plants, officials sought external advice as the guidance of the Scottish Public Finance Manual recommends. The decision to support the transfer of ownership between the businesses considered this external advice and this intervention acted to effectively ensure that steel production and employment resumed.

As stated in the responses to the Freedom of information requests the information is in the Business contracts and is commercially sensitive.

Scottish Government officials contacted TATA Steel UK on 9 December 2021 to inform the company of its findings concerning the potential presence of State Aid with respect to 2016 transaction. Channels of communication between the Scottish Government and Tata Steel UK to facilitate dialogue remain open but it would not be appropriate to publish the detailed content of these commercially sensitive exchanges.

The Scottish Government has not carried out an overarching assessment of the typical environmental remediation costs for sites of former steelworks in Scotland. Due to Scotland’s long history of iron and steel making such activity has taken place in a range of locations and circumstances over differing time periods and has involved many different processes and scales of production. Hence land remediation costs at any particular former steelworks site will depend on a multitude of site-specific factors and the owners’ planned future uses of the land.

The ‘’wider group’’ referred to by the Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise is Liberty Steel Dalzell Limited's parent company.

Channels of communication between the Scottish Government and Tata Steel UK remain open so both parties are aware the other’s position on this commercially sensitive topic.