FOI/202600521959 · FOI · not held
Public Contracts Scotland data: FOI release
Information requested
You asked for the detailed expenditure of public funds originating from Scottish taxpayers over the last 15 years. You also requested details of all beneficiaries, including the country and region in which they are located, the purpose of the funding, the intended benefit, the funding category, the amount awarded, the funding programme, the dates of payment, and the relevant budget line.
In addition, you requested any assessments, evaluations, reports, or outcome measures demonstrating the benefits achieved. For any organisation located outside Scotland, you requested the total amount paid to that organisation, the justification for providing funding to it, and any assessments demonstrating the benefit of that funding to Scotland and its taxpayers.
Response
As the request covers such a broad spectrum, we have treated the request as referring to any payment to an external body, including payments to suppliers, grants, grant-in-aid, procurement payments, payments to other Governments etc.
Section 12(1) of FOISA applies as we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed £600, which is the prescribed upper cost limit. The information requested spans a significant period of time and would require extensive searches across multiple systems and records, together with substantial sifting and retrieval work to identify and extract all relevant information.
We will try and provide information where possible and provide links to information readily available to the public.
Responses to your specific questions are set out below.
1. A list of all organisations, bodies, charities, companies, partnerships, trusts, public bodies, nongovernmental organisations, international organisations, and any other entities that received funding, grants, contracts, subsidies, loans, guarantees, or other financial support from funds administered by your authority.
2. For each organisation identified, please provide:
The organisation's names. Registration number (where applicable). Country and region where the organisation is based. Whether the organisation is located within Scotland, elsewhere in the United Kingdom, or outside the United Kingdom.
Under section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we must notify you where we do not hold all information you have requested. Following searches of our records, we have concluded that the Scottish Government reporting does not break down supplier by country. For those in the United Kingdom, it is not separated by individual countries in the United Kingdom. I have enclosed a copy of some of the information you requested in excel tables as requested. We have provided a list of all organisations, bodies, charities, companies, partnerships, trusts, public bodies, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, and any other entities that are currently registered on our Finance system. This does include the Town/ City in order to help you distinguish origin of the payee.
The Scottish Government moved to a new finance system in October 2024. The two lists of suppliers provided are those active in our previous system prior to the move to Oracle Cloud and those currently active in Oracle Cloud. Legacy numbers from the previous system are provided where applicable. We are unable to provide details of inactive suppliers who may have had funding due to limitations in our vendor reporting. Multiple entries will mean multiple locations or bank details.
3. From the list of suppliers, you have requested:
The purpose for which the funding was provided; The category of expenditure; The amount of money allocated, approved, committed, and actually paid; The dates of payment; and The funding programme or budget line used.
Details of the beneficiaries of the funding, including:
Who was intended to benefit from the expenditure; How they were expected to benefit; and Any assessments, evaluations, reports, or outcomes demonstrating the benefit achieved.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Section 12(1) of FOISA applies as we estimate that the cost of complying with it would exceed £600, which is the prescribed upper cost limit. The information requested spans a significant period of time and would require extensive searches across multiple systems and records, together with substantial sifting and retrieval work to identify and extract all relevant information.
Some of the information you have requested is available from Public Contracts Scotland. This is the Scottish Government’s official national procurement portal, designed to provide free and transparent access to public sector contracts across Scotland. It enables compliance with statutory procurement obligations. It also facilitates audit checks and reporting by maintaining a record of procurement activity, helping demonstrate that public funds are being spent in line with relevant legislation and best practice.
You can find Public Contracts Scotland via this URL https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/
The Scottish Government’s “spend over £25,000” reports also provide transparent, published details of all payments exceeding £25,000, supporting accountability, auditability, and public scrutiny of how public funds are spent.
You can find these published reports via this URL https://www.gov.scot/collections/government-spend-over-gbp25000-monthly-reports/
The Scottish Government’s “spend over £500” reports publish monthly details of expenditure made using electronic Purchasing Cards (ePC), providing transparency over lower‑value, transactional spend and supporting public accountability for the use of government purchasing cards.
You can find these published reports via this URL Government spend over £500: monthly reports - gov.scot
4. For organisations located outside Scotland, please provide:
The total amount paid to each organisation. The justification for funding an organisation outside Scotland. Any assessment of the benefit to Scotland or Scottish taxpayers arising from the expenditure.
As noted previously Scotland is not noted as a single country, the country on the system is United Kingdom, it is not separated by individual countries in the United Kingdom. Therefore under section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we must notify you where we do not hold the information you have requested. We have provided a list the Town/ City in our attachments to help you distinguish origin of the payee.
For countries outside of the United Kingdom, Section 12(1) of FOISA applies as we estimate that the cost of complying with it would exceed £600, which is the prescribed upper cost limit. The information requested spans a significant period of time and would require extensive searches across multiple systems and records, together with substantial sifting and retrieval work to identify and extract all relevant information.
5. The total annual expenditure distributed to organisations:
Within Scotland; Elsewhere in the UK; Outside the UK;
Under section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we must notify you where we do not hold the information you have requested as Scotland is not listed as an individual country on our system and reporting does not break down expenditure by country. As previously noted we have provided a list the Town/ City in our attachments to help you distinguish origin of the payee.
You may, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600 as scaling back to a single year would still breach the £600 limit for all the information requested. You could specify the individual suppliers from the list provided that you are interested in would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at:
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.
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
Section 12(1) of FOISA applies as we estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed £600, which is the prescribed upper cost limit. Under section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we must notify you where we do not hold all information you have requested. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Section 12(1) of FOISA applies as we estimate that the cost of complying with it would exceed £600, which is the prescribed upper cost limit. Therefore under section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we must notify you where we do not hold the information you have requested. For countries outside of the United Kingdom, Section 12(1) of FOISA applies as we estimate that the cost of complying with it would exceed £600, which is the prescribed upper cost limit.