FOI/202500454374 · FOI · cost limit
Scottish Government media and social media subscriptions: FOI release
Information requested
You asked for a breakdown of the total costs of all media and social media subscriptions and any other recurring monthly subscriptions.
Response
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that purchase of media and social media subscriptions is delegated to branches and therefore to identify them we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government.
Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.
You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. This can be done be defining the specific types of products and services described in the request as 'media', defining 'any other recurring monthly subscriptions' and the period of time you require the information to cover. 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.
Information provided outwith FOISA
However, in order to provide you with as full an answer as possible I have interpreted 'media' as newspapers and news services and assumed the scope of the request covers the current financial year 24/25. I have provided a return from the Directorate for Communications and Ministerial Support and the Directorate for Digital within the Scottish Government as these areas are likely to be the heaviest users of media and social media services.
I therefore enclose media and social media spend from the Directorate for Communications and Ministerial Support and the Directorate for Digital for the financial year 24/25 as at 17th March 2025:
Supplier Description Gross Total Hootsuite Hootsuite social media management subscription £55,853.00 Sprout Social Sprout Social social media management subscription £1,947.54 Adobe Adobe digital media subscriptions £3,929.40 Adobe Adobe Creative Cloud subscription £526.59 Shutterstock Shutterstock licenced images subscription £45.60 Canva Canva graphic design platform subscription £8,500.00 Financial Times Subscription for single access (online edition) £565.00 The Economist Subscription for single access (online edition) £210.00 The Ferret The Ferret news and fact checking service. Single online access subscription £360.00 Biteable Subscription for Biteable video creation tool £961.13 Mailchimp Subscription for Mailchimp newsletter creation tool £357.00 Wordpress Subscription for Scottish Government Library Wordpress blog £132.00 Newsbank Newsbank UK and Ireland news archive database subscription £15,111.00 Office Papers Ad-hoc newspaper purchases (invoiced monthly and not a subscription service) £16,324.65 Total £104,822.91
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.
Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.
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