Costing of lateral flow testing kits provided to football supporters: FOI release

Information requested

The cost to the Scottish Government of the 17,000 lateral flow test kits mailed out to football fans heading to Glasgow Green for the Euro 2020 fanzone (both the cost of the test itself plus the mailing).

Response

Test and Protect, Scotland’s approach to implementing the 'test, trace, isolate, support strategy', is a public health measure designed to break chains of transmission of COVID-19 in the community. As noted in the Scottish Government’s Coronavirus (COVID-19): Framework for Decision Making; early and rapid testing to confirm cases and close contacts supports the evidence of outbreaks of the disease and enable us to be ready to act decisively to suppress them and so prevent wider transmission. Given the wide access and availability of testing that we now have in Scotland, we are also able to offer testing as an additional risk reduction option, as was the case for events such as the EURO Fan Zone in Glasgow.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have all of the information you have requested. The Scottish Government does not buy tests directly, but instead receives a population share of the number of tests that the UK Government purchase as part of the UK wide Testing Programme. The approximate cost of a lateral flow test is around £4 per test (excluding VAT).

Glasgow City Council/Glasgow Life sent out the test kits as the event organisers and will therefore be able to provide information on the cost of mailing out the test kits.

You may wish to contact UK Government for information regarding the cost of lateral flow tests via - https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request.

You may also wish to contact Glasgow City Council and/or Glasgow Life via - https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=17479 or https://forms.glasgowlife.org.uk/Pages/Freedom-of-Information-Enquiry-Form.aspx for information regarding the cost of mailing out test kits for the Euro 2020 Fan Zone.

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.