FOI 26-312 Compensation Paid by SAS
Freedom of Information Request
- Reference
- FOI 26-312 Compensation Paid by SAS
- Request Date
- 14 Jul 2026
- Response Date
- 04 Aug 2026
- Information Requested
Please provide the following information for each financial year from 2019/20 to 2025/26 (or most recent):
- The number of compensation payouts made.
- Please specify whether each payout was made to an employee of your health board or to a member of the public receiving care from your health board. Where the payout was made to an employee, please provide the employee’s job title, including but not limited to doctor, nurse, cleaner or executive.
- Please specify the amount of compensation paid in each case, in pounds sterling, and provide the total amount paid across all cases during the overall time period.
- Please specify the reason for the compensation paid in each case, such as vehicle accident claims, employer liability and employment tribunal claims, public liability claims, or other relevant categories.
- Response
Although your request covers the period 2019/20 to 2025/26, the Scottish Ambulance Service only holds compensation payment information in a reportable format for the last five financial years. We have therefore provided the information available for 2021/22 to 2025/26. To provide this information would require a review of individual claim records and the creation of new information. FOISA provides a right of access to recorded information held by a public authority and does not require authorities to create new information in order to answer a request.
Q1 - The number of compensation payouts made.
There has been a total of 222 compensation cases recorded from 01/04/2021 - 31/03/2026. A breakdown of these figures by year can be found on the first tab of the attached sheet.
Q2 - Please specify whether each payout was made to an employee of your health board or to a member of the public receiving care from your health board. Where the payout was made to an employee, please provide the employee’s job title, including but not limited to doctor, nurse, cleaner or executive.
The Scottish Ambulance Service do not record claims information in a way that identifies whether the claimant was an employee or a member of the public, nor do we routinely record employee job title against each payment. To provide this information would require a review of each claim and apply complex skill and judgement using different systems. It is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as information not held.
Q3 - Please specify the amount of compensation paid in each case, in pounds sterling, and provide the total amount paid across all cases during the overall time period.
Individual payment amounts are held in within each case. To provide this information would require a manual review and extraction from each case with complex skill and judgement required to determine the legal findings and payments. This extraction would result in the creation of new information which is not expected of the authority to answer a FOISA request.. It is for this reason we have applied section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002 as information not held. We have provided a year-by-year total payout amount against the categories held in the system. Please see find this on the second tab of the attached sheet.
Q4 - Please specify the reason for the compensation paid in each case, such as vehicle accident claims, employer liability and employment tribunal claims, public liability claims, or other relevant categories.
Please see the second tab on the attached sheet detailing the category of each claim as held by the Scottish Ambulance Service.
In accordance with statistical disclosure control principles, where the number of incidents is fewer than five but greater that zero, figures have been suppressed and shown as "<5". This is because disclosure of very small numbers may increase the risk of individuals being identified when combined with other information that may be available.
Where suppression has been applied, the exact figure is exempt from disclosure under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information), as disclosure could lead to the identification of individuals and would therefore contravene the data protection principles.
- Response Documents
