Communications Department public relations contracts: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02903
Date received: 14 November 2017
Date responded: 18 December 2017

Information requested

Part 1

1. Does your department currently use a private company to undertake any of the following services:

• Public Relations
• Social Media Communications
• External Stakeholder Communications
• Internal Stakeholder Communications.

2. If yes, can you please confirm:

• When the current contract was last let
• When the current contract expires
• Whether the current contract has options to extend its length
• When you expect to retender the contract.

3. If no (to question 1 above), are you considering letting such a contract in the future and if so, do you have an approximate timetable for engaging the market?

Part 2

4. Have you used a private company to help you with any other marketing or public information campaigns in the past 2 years?

5. If so, could you please provide a brief overview of what those campaigns were about and approximately how long your contract with the company was for to support the campaign(s)?

Response

I enclose a copy of all the information you requested:

Part 1 question 1 – The answer to first 3 bullets are yes and the answer to bullet 4 is No.

Part 1 question 2 – Please see the 'PR Contracts table' for bullets 1 to 3. To answer bullet 4 and part 1 question 3: The Scottish Government would not automatically retender a contract when it reached the end of its expected award period. This would align with Scottish Ministers' priorities.

PR Contracts Table

Category	Agency	Portfolio	Start Date	End Date	Extensions
(months)	Extension
Used
PR	3x1	Tram Inquiry	30-Jan-15	29-Jan-16	12+12	2
PR	Smarts	Safer Roads	10-Jun-15	09-Jun-16	12+12	2
PR	Consolidated	Safer Communities	15-Jun-15	14-Jun-16	12+12	2
PR	BIG	Smarter 2016	19-May-16	18-May-17	12+12	1
PR	Consolidated	Healthier Scotland 2016	01-Jun-16	31-May-17	12+12	1
PR	Stripe	Parental Audience	14-Sep-17	13-Sep-18	12+12	0
PR	3x1	International	13-Sep-17	12-Sep-18	12+12	0
PR	Smarts	WW100	03-Oct-17	02-Oct-18	12	0
PR	Pagoda	Migration	16-Nov-17	15-Nov-18	12+12	0

Part 2 question 4. Yes, see 5 below.

Part 2 question 5. Scottish Government Marketing delivers a large number of campaigns each year. These are a mix of behaviour change and public information campaigns. The following links will provide you with the list of 36 campaigns that were delivered in 2015-16 and the 36 campaigns delivered in 2016-17, along with total spend.

2015-16: /publications/advertising-spend-2015-2016/Advertising%20spend%20-%202015-16.pdf?inline=true

2016-17: /publications/marketing-spend-2016-2017/

We have multiple contracts with creative agencies that that enable us to deliver these campaigns. We tender through Scottish Government frameworks, which include Digital, PR, advertising, media buying, etc).

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