Payments made to Gerard Burns: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02634
Date received: 1 November 2017
Date responded: 30 November 2017

Information requested

Payments made by the Scottish Government to Gerard Burns from and including 2009; for if the Scottish Government paid expenses for him to attend Scotland week in 2017, 2016 and 2015; for a full list of art purchased off of and commissioned by the Scottish Government from Gerard Burns and for the total cost and breakdown of costs for Scotland week 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Response

In relation to expenses paid to Gerard Burns. The Scottish Government paid £6218.67 for accommodation and flights to Mr Burns and 2 other people who supported the exhibition "A Brush With Inspiration" during Scotland Week 2015. Mr Burns did not attend Scotland Week as part of any Scottish Government activity in 2016 or 2017 and no payments were made.

The Scottish Government has in past provided support to those travelling to participate in Scotland Week activity. For example in 2015 the Scottish Government provided funds for 5 students from the Royal Conservatiore of Scotland to travel to Los Angeles to promote the quality of arts education in Scotland and forge links with performing art schools and various film industry professionals.

A breakdown for costs of Scotland Week for Scotland Week 2016 is below.

Scotland Week 2016

Organization	Event/Description	Cost
VisitScotland	ASF Sponsorship; Scots Who Built New York	£3,448.28
	NTS Event	£3,500.00
	Media Dinner (post-NTS)	£1,900.00
	Business Lunch	£6,099.00
	Diaspora Breakfast	£4,500.00
	Tartan Day Parade	£11,000.00
	Collateral	£1,908.57
	LDPR fees	£10,010.00
	T & S	£4,426.30
TOTAL		£46,792.15
International Marketing	LDPR fees	£20,000.00
	Tartan Day Parade	£4,433.15
	NTS Event	£1,324.48
	Scotland Run Logistics & Entertainment	£31,863.45
	T & S	£3,218.20
TOTAL		£60,839.28
SDI	Global Scot Lunch	£264.81
	T & S	£411.02
TOTAL		£675.83
Culture Division	NTS Event	£3,600.00
Scottish Affairs Office	ASF Donation	£6,718.00
	NTS Event	£2,623.97
	Alumni Reception	£4,777.62
	Wreath for 9/11 Memorial	£308.11
	Tartan Day Parade Banner	£139.58
	Scotland Run	£57,855.02
	Scotland Run Water	£1,782.77
	Scotland Run Insurance	£5,771.48
	Car Service	£4,031.96
TOTAL		£84,008.51
GRAND TOTAL		£195,915.77

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested in relation to Scotland Week 2015 and 2017. The reason the Scottish Government does not have the information you requested is because it does not hold a breakdown of costs incurred by its partner organisations such as Visit Scotland or SDI.

In this instance I have provided a breakdown of costs incurred by the Scottish Government only for these respective years.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1)(b) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

Scotland Week 2015

Item	Total
Scotland Run	£53,921.13
A Brush with Inspiration	£53,676.11
Live Music Now (Manran)	£6,000.00
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland	£18,000.00
Scottish Music Awards	£2,000.00
Bryant Park Music Festival (ASF)	£6,637.00
Gifts	£2,374.00
NYC Ground Zero Wreath	£341.68
Tartan Parade Banner	£277.10
Cars	£11,000.49
Alumni Reception (NYC)	£9,076.20
Year of Food & Drink Reception (NYC)	£1,558.94
RCS Reception (LA)	£10,014.71
Photography	£1,071.31
Moving Image Showcase	£6,247.73
Albany Club Event	£109.63
Veterans Luncheon	£839.87
Marketing	£55,679.35
Total	£238,825.25

Scotland Week 2017

Event	Total
Alumni	£7,905.62
Tartan Day Parade	£4,382
Bryant Park	£6,260
Marketing a)	£130,886.20
Total	£149,433.82

a) The 2017 international marketing campaign was launched on April 6 2017 to support Scotland Week activity but the costs account for a four month programme of PR, social media and digital marketing across North America for 4 months. This budget in previous years was purely focused on on Scotland Week and the change of strategy delivered a truly 'digital first' activity that reached an audience of over 8 million by the end of July with deeper, more impactful messaging.

With regards to "payments made by the Scottish Government to Gerard Burns from and including 2009" and "a full list of art purchased off of and commissioned by the Scottish Government from Gerard Burns". 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 to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct an extensive 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. For example, you could be more specific about which area of Government you would like this request 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 her 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 http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses