Breakdown of alcohol spending for Bute House: FOI release

Information requested

I would like to access the following information collected in each of the past 5 financial years.

1. How many bottles of wine have been bought by the Scottish Government, or by external companies on behalf of the Scottish Government as part of a contract for BUTE HOUSE. For each financial year please outline the total cost of each type of wine and the total number of bottles for each type of wine.

2. How many bottles of whisky have been bought by the Scottish Government, or by external companies on behalf of the Scottish Government as part of a contract for BUTE HOUSE. For each financial year please outline which brands of whisky were purchased and the total cost of each.

3. How many bottles of vodka have been bought by the Scottish Government, or by external companies on behalf of the Scottish Government as part of a contract for BUTE HOUSE. For each financial year please outline which brands of vodka were purchased and the total cost of each.

4. How many bottles of brandy have been bought by the Scottish Government, or by external companies on behalf of the Scottish Government as part of a contract for BUTE HOUSE. For each financial year please outline which brands of brandy were purchased and the total cost of each.

Response

I am able to provide you with some of the information you have requested.

To respond to your request, I have undertaken a thorough review of information from our purchasing system, relating to hospitality orders for events hosted at Bute House. Where the information has specified numbers of bottles of alcohol purchased I have used this information to respond to your request. It is likely that further bottles of alcohol will have been included in the wider costs of catering for other events at Bute House. However, in several cases this has simply been billed to us as part of the overall cost of the event or as total drinks package for the event. We therefore do not have the information which would allow us to disaggregate the total numbers of bottles of different alcohol types.

Question 1

Please see below all the information we hold relevant to your request. In some instances we do not hold information allowing us to determine the type of wine purchased, so we have listed these as ‘unknown’:

Dates	Number of bottles	White	Red	Unknown
2016/17	4	£18 x 2	£18 x 2
2017/18	5	£16.80 x 2	£16.80 x 3
2018/19	164	£21 x 4	£21 x 4
		£16.80 x 4	£16.80 x 6
		£16.10 x 8	£16.10 x 7
		£18 x 9	£16 X 4
		£21 x 3	£21 x 2
		£14 x 8	£14 x 3
		£14 x 8	£14 x 7
		£24 X 2 (Cava)
		£14 x 6	£14 x 7
		£10.60 X 5	£9.50 x 2
		£5.99 x 6	£5.99 x 6
		£30 x 3	£26 x 3
		£30 X 3 (Cava)
		£21 x 2	£21 x 3
				£9.40 X 9
				£9.40 X 4
				£15.40 X 13
				£14 X 11
2019/20	119	£21 x 3	£21 x 2
		£21 x 5	£21 x 5
		£21 x 3	£21 x 3
		£21 x 2	£23 x 1
		£21 x 5	£21 x 5
		£21 x 6	£21 x 6
		£15.60 x 9	£15.60 x 3
		£21 x 8	£21 x 7
		£21 x 1	£21 x 1
			£21 x 7
		£15.80 x 3	£15.80 x 2
				£15.80 X 2
				£15.60 X 8
				£15.60 X 6
				£15.80 X 10
				£15.60 X 6
2020/21	Nil
2021/22	1		£16.80 x 1

This is the most detailed information we have about purchases of bottles of wine for Bute House since 2016/17. However, as mentioned above it is possible that further bottles of wine will have been provided as part of the wider catering for certain events, and that seems likely to be the case.

Question 2

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for. As far as I can ascertain no bottles of whisky have been purchased by the Scottish Government for events held at Bute House within the timeframe of the request, though I cannot rule out the possibility that some whisky could have been provided as part of the wider catering for certain events.

Therefore, this is a formal notice under Section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Question 3

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for. As far as I can ascertain no bottles of vodka have been purchased by the Scottish Government for events held at Bute House within the timeframe of the request, though I cannot rule out the possibility that some vodka could have been provided as part of the wider catering for certain events.

Therefore, this is a formal notice under Section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Question 4

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for. As far as I can ascertain no bottles of brandy have been purchased by the Scottish Government for events held at Bute House within the timeframe of the request, though I cannot rule out the possibility that some brandy may have been provided as part of the wider catering for certain events.

Therefore, this is a formal notice under Section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

About FOI

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