Correspondence and financial data on Ipsos and polling companies: FOI release

Information requested

1 - All communications to and from Ipsos by the Scottish Gov. To include both MSP's, their Offices staff and Civil servants acting on behalf of the Scottish Gov from 1/09/2023 & 9/2/2024.

2 - Amounts paid to Ipsos by the Scottish Gov for each financial year for 2020/21, 21/22, 22/23 and how much has been paid this financial year up to 9/2/2024.

3 - How many other 'poll,' research companies the Scottish Gov has used in each of the years in #2

4 - Names of companies in #3 and how much each was paid for the financial years in #2

5 - How often does the tender for carrying out research / polls for the Scottish Gov get renewed? When was it last renewed?

6 - Are any members of the Scottish Gov at Holyrood employed, advise or are stakeholders in Ipsos ? Are any family members of the Scottish Gov employed, advise or are stakeholders in Ipsos ?

Response

I am able to enclose some of the information you requested, and offer the following responses to your requests:

1 - All communications to and from Ipsos by the Scottish Gov. To include both MSP's, their Offices staff and Civil servants acting on behalf of the Scottish Gov from 1/09/2023 & 9/2/2024.

Communications between Ipsos and Members of the Scottish Parliament and their office staff are not held by the Scottish Government. I suggest you contact the Scottish Parliament to determine if they hold the information. The link is here: https://www.parliament.scot/about/information-rights/requesting information

You also asked for communications between civil servants and Ipsos. 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, calculated on the basis of the number of people who have indicated they have received communications from, or communicated with Ipsos during the period of interest. 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 specify the subject(s) or business area(s) of interest. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights /Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

2 - Amounts paid to Ipsos by the Scottish Gov for each financial year for 2020/21, 21/22, 22/23 and how much has been paid this financial year up to 9/2/2024.

3 - How many other 'poll,' research companies the Scottish Gov has used in each of the years in #2.

Full information pertaining to these requests is included in the attached spreadsheet.

4 - Names of companies in #3 and how much each was paid for the financial years in #2.

The names of the companies are provided in the attached spreadsheet. However, provision of information on how much each company was paid exceeds the upper cost threshold because we wouldneed to conduct a search of all the records of the Scottish Government for the 103 organisations concerned, for each of the financial years. As outlined above in the response to your first request, you could consider reducing the scope of your request to bring this within the cost threshold.

5 - How often does the tender for carrying out research / polls for the Scottish Gov get renewed? When was it last renewed?

All Scottish Government research and surveying activities are commissioned by fair and open competition, with all opportunities being published on Public Contracts Scotland (https://www.publiccontractsscotland.gov.uk/) Full details of the process are set out in the Scottish Government Public Finance Manual (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-public-finance-manual/)

The Scottish Government framework for Marketing Services is renewed every 4 years. The current framework includes Lot 5 for Market Research Services. Ipsos is on the framework, having tendered and won the open competition at framework level. The framework commenced on the 1 Sept 2022 and expires on 31 August 2026. Details of the framework are published on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/procurement-marketing-services-framework/

6 - Are any members of the Scottish Gov at Holyrood employed, advise or are stakeholders in Ipsos ? Are any family members of the Scottish Gov employed, advise or are stakeholders in Ipsos?

For the first part of the question, for Scottish Government civil servants, we have searched the internal Register of Interests for Ipsos and Ipsos Mori and the search did not yield any relevant results. For the second part of this request, and also if you are seeking information on Members of the Scottish Parliament, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested, because this information is not held by the Scottish Government. You might wish to contact the Scottish Parliament (link in response to question 1).

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.

FOI 202400398280 - Information Released - Spreadsheet

File type

Excel document

File size

28.1 kB