Official Development Assistance (ODA) and homelessness services funding: FOI release

Information requested

"How much in taxpayers money has the Scottish Government given to foreign Aid All countries" and also "How much has Scottish government given in taxpayer's money to" and here you list three categories:

• Homeless people in Scotland
• Veteran soldiers in Scotland
• Vaccine damaged in Scotland

In response to our request for clarification dated 14 November, you specified a timescale of ten years for your queries.

Response

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. I have outlined the specific details for each of your requests below.

Regarding your request for information on “How much has Scottish Government given in taxpayer's money to… Veteran soldiers in Scotland”, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because we do not provide funding to individual veteran soldiers, but instead funds organisations in the public and third sectors to deliver projects that support veterans from all three Services.

Details of that funding can be found in a 2023 Report which highlights the Scottish Government’s continuing support for the Veterans and Armed Forces community in Scotland: https://www.gov.scot/publications/support-veterans-armed-forces-community-2023/.

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

Regarding your request for information on “How much has Scottish Government given in taxpayer's money to… Vaccine damaged in Scotland”, the safety of medicines, including vaccines, are issues which are reserved for the UK Government. This includes policy on compensation for vaccine damages. Disability or damage caused by vaccination is covered by the Vaccine Damages Payments Scheme (VDPS) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) are responsible for the policy of this scheme.

You may wish to submit a new request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) to the DHSC at Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries Unit, Department of Health and Social Care, 39 Victoria Street, London, SW1H 0EU or dhsc.publicenquiries@dhsc.gov.uk who should be able to help you further.

Regarding your request for information on “how much in taxpayers money has the Scottish Government given to foreign Aid All countries”, the table below outlines Scottish Government Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 2013/14 until 2022:

Year	Scottish Government ODA, £millions
2013/14	11.3
2014/15	11.7
2015/16	11.0
2016/17	11.8
2017/18	14.0
2018 1	11.1
2019	14.3
2020	12.1
2021	26.2
2022	18.7

(1) Prior to 2018 Scottish Government reported financial year ODA. In 2018 it switched to calendar year reporting, in line with international standards, the 2018 figure in this table covers April to December to avoid double counting.

Regarding your request for information on “How much has Scottish Government given in taxpayer's money to… Homeless people in Scotland", the Scottish Government provides funding to local authorities to enable them to deliver a range of public services, including homelessness
services.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on homelessness, on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities. Statistics on how much money was spent on homelessness services by local authorities is published at:

https://www.gov.scot/collections/local-government-financestatistics/#scottishlocalgovernmentfinancialstatistics

(See workbooks labelled ‘LFR 20’ in these documents for details on homelessness expenditure).

In addition to funding provided through the block grant, the Scottish Government has established a multi-year £100 million Ending Homelessness Together Fund to support delivery of actions in our homelessness strategy. This fund has been operating since 2018-19 and the latest available figures are provided in the table below. The column ‘other EHT commitments’ details funding that is additional to that set out in the workbooks labelled ‘LFR 20’.

Financial year	Funding to support delivery of rapid rehousing transition plans (allocated via the block grant)	Other EHT commitments (includes funding to third sector homelessness organisations)	Ending Homelessness Together fund – total annual allocation
2018-19	[£2,000,416]	£2,158,351.16	£4,158,767.16
2019-20	[£8,000,000]	£2,351,860.18	£10,351,860.18
2020-21	[£8,000,000]	£1,658,797.55	£9,658,797.55
2021-22	[£8,000,000]	£4,064,902.80	£12,064,902.80
2022-23	[£8,000,000]	£1,927,031.51	£9,927,031.51

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.