Will the Minister detail operating costs, including rent, utilities, staffing and expenses, for each of the Welsh Government’s offices abroad during this current Senedd term to date?
Information on the running costs for each international office can be found within the State of the Estate report at the following link https://gov.wales/state-estate-report-2018-to-2019.
Data protection legislation requires us to protect personal information being held in relation to individual members of staff, and others, and to ensure that it is only used for the purposes for which it was collected. As there are a small number of staff in each of the offices, disclosure of the total staff costs for each office is likely to allow the actual salaries of each individual to be identified. We believe that releasing this information would be in breach of the Data Protection Act.
The figures in the State of the Estate report does not cover the whole of the Senedd term. Therefore, I will write to you shortly with the figures for 2019/20, once the information has been collated. The figures for 2020/21 are not yet available.