FOI/202600513728 · FOI · cost limit
Public Contracts Scotland Contracts Register: FOI release
Information requested
All contracts, agreements, or payments made by the Scottish Government to private investigation firms or individuals providing investigative, surveillance, or intelligence-gathering services between 1 January 2020 and the present day.
For each instance, please provide:
The name of the supplier or individual The nature of the services provided The total amount spent The dates of the contract or engagement
Response
Examination of Scottish Government records show that there are no examples of the type of contract detailed within your request.
Information, similar to that you requested, is available free of charge from the Public Contracts Scotland Contracts Register. I have provided a link to the Public Contracts Scotland website where you can access the Scottish Government Contracts Register. This contains details of contracts awarded by the Scottish Government since 2021, as well as those awarded prior to 2021 but live during the period of your request.
https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/Default.aspx
In addition to providing the Public Contracts Scotland website link I have attached guidance on how to access and navigate to the Contracts Register.
The Scottish Government also publish all spend over £25,000 on a monthly basis which is available here -
Government spend over £25,000: monthly and annual reports - gov.scot
and spend over £500 on the Scottish Government's electronic Purchasing Cards (ePC) which is available here
https://www.gov.scot/collections/government-spend-over-gbp500-monthly-reports/
While the Scottish Government holds general financial records relating to expenditure, these records are not held in a way that allows us to identify or confirm whether spending specifically on private investigation services has occurred.
Expenditure is recorded against high‑level cost categories and supplier details, and does not include sufficient descriptive information to reliably determine whether a particular payment related to private investigation activity. The finance systems do not contain a specific category, tag or classification for the area you requested.
In order to identify whether any such expenditure has occurred, it would be necessary to undertake a manual examination of a very large volume of individual transactions and associated supporting documentation across multiple cost centres. We estimate that this work would exceed the £600 cost limit set out in the Freedom of Information (Fees for Required Disclosure) (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Accordingly, the Scottish Government is not required to comply with this request and the exemption at section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 applies.
Public Interest Test
The exemption at section 12(1) of FOISA is not subject to the public interest test. As a result, we are not required to consider whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption.
In line with our duty to provide advice and assistance under section 15 of the Act, we would be happy to consider a refined request that could be answered within the cost limit. For example, you may wish to:
specify particular named suppliers; focus on a specific Scottish Government Director‑General area or policy area; or limit the request to a shorter time period.
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Detected exemption language
Accordingly, the Scottish Government is not required to comply with this request and the exemption at section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 applies. Public Interest Test The exemption at section 12(1) of FOISA is not subject to the public interest test. As a result, we are not required to consider whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption. In line with our duty to provide advice and assistance under section 15 of the Act, we would be happy to consider a refined request that could be answered within the cost limit.