FOI/202600517187 · FOI · released
Total Scottish Government spend on asylum seeker and refugee support: FOI release
Information requested
1. The total amount spent by the Scottish Government on asylum seeker and refugee support (accommodation, welfare, health, education, integration, and legal support) in each of the last three financial years.
2. A detailed breakdown of this spending by category (e.g. housing, health, education, integration programmes, legal costs).
Response
I enclose a copy in Excel format as requested of some of the information you requested.
You asked for total spent by the Scottish Government to on asylum seeker and refugee support in each of the last three financial years. Immigration is a reserved matter and the provision and funding for asylum support including translation services across the UK is primarily the responsibility of the Home Office.
You may wish to contact the Home Office to find out whether there is any information which they would be able to provide regarding asylum seekers. You can email their FOI team at foirequests@homeoffice.gov.uk
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.
We can however provide you with some financial data on Scottish Government spend specifically on refugee related support over the timescale requested.
The table attached provides details of spending on programmes identified as having outcomes fully attributable to supporting refugees and displaced populations over the last three years.
As this is financial data it is aligned to financial year format, rather than calendar year, so for example “2025/26” would mean the period April 1st 2025 through March 31st 2026.
You also asked for a breakdown of spend by category. We are unable to provide you with that full breakdown as the Scottish Government’s financial records on spend on services often do not record who the intended audience of the work was to a level of granularity of individual characteristics. It is therefore impossible to always determine if costs related to refugees or people seeking asylum. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.
You asked for the spend to include “legal support”. The Scottish Legal Aid Board is a nondepartmental public body that does not sit directly within Scottish Government. You may wish to review their annual accounts documents which can be found at the below website. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.
https://www.slab.org.uk/corporate-information/publications/corporate-information/annual-reports/
Please note that this response can also be taken to serve as a response to case 202600517178. Scottish Government’s FOI Unit advised that the cases are similar in scope to the extent that case 202600517178 be formally withdrawn and advice be provided in this response that the data can reasonably be assumed to cover both.
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
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you.