FOI/202500464368 · FOI · partially withheld
Breakdown of allocation of £100m announced to bring down waiting times: FOI release
Information requested
A breakdown of how the 25-26 share of the £100m announced to bring down waiting times will be allocated.
Please provide
a) the budget for each health board,
b) a short description of what this pay for (EG mobile MRI scanners, additional staffing, etc),
c) how much extra activity of what type this is expected to lead to.
Response
a) the budget for each health board.
The funding committed to date in respect of the circa £100 million extra investment to address long waits is shown in Table 1 broken down by health board. This information is publicly available on the Scottish Parliament’s website – answer S6W-37797.
Table.
Health Board Total Cost 25/26 NHS Ayrshire & Arran 5,708,768 NHS Borders 2,550,705 NHS Dumfries & Galloway 772,963 NHS Fife 9,938,616 NHS Forth Valley 3,656,435 NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde 24,515,664 NHS Golden Jubilee 2,183,118 NHS Grampian 6,987,204 NHS Highland 10,288,772 NHS Lanarkshire 6,606,479 NHS Lothian 22,379,275 NHS Orkney 165,664 NHS Shetland 422,127 NHS Tayside 9,921,322 NHS Western Isles 71,000 Grand Total 106,168,112
b) a short description of what this pay for (EG mobile MRI scanners, additional staffing, etc).
Table 2 (attached separately) shows the types of initiatives being funded through the £100 million investment. Please note, this table is not exhaustive and some of the initiatives listed overlap and/or are interdependent. For example, a Board may be planning to pay substantive staff overtime to run additional clinics.
c) how much extra activity of what type this is expected to lead to.
An exemption under section 27(1) (information intended for future publication) of FOISA applies to the information you have requested. The reason why this exemption applies is explained in the Annex to this letter.
ANNEX
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION
An exemption applies, subject to the public interest test An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested because we intend to publish that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request. We consider that it is reasonable to withhold the information until then, rather than release some of this information before the planned publication.
This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is some public interest in release due to the Scottish Government’s commitment to deliver over 150,000 extra appointments and procedures in 2025-26 and this will be met by our planned publication. In the meantime, there is a greater public interest in taking the time necessary to ensure the information has been properly finalised and checked before it is published as planned.
About FOI
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Detected exemption language
An exemption under section 27(1) (information intended for future publication) of FOISA applies to the information you have requested. The reason why this exemption applies is explained in the Annex to this letter. ANNEX REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION An exemption applies, subject to the public interest test An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested because we intend to publish that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.