COVID-19 Pandemic Additional Funding: FOI release

Information requested

1. Detailed information on the extra funding the Scottish Government received to manage and mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic during the years 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

2. Details of how this extra funding was allocated. Specifically, you requested information on:

• The percentage of extra funding that was allocated to different regions within Scotland.
• The percentage of extra funding that was provided to NHS trusts and other healthcare services.
• Any other sectors or areas where the extra funding was allocated, including but not limited to education, business support, and social services.

Response

Extra funding received

The information you have requested is available on the Scottish Government and Audit Scotland websites.

The Scottish Government has provided a detailed breakdown of all COVID-19 consequentials received previously, including in the response to an FOI of 21 November 2023 which can be found online here. These amounts total £14.564 billion.

Note that the £707 million of Resource consequentials received following the 2021-22 Supplementary Estimates includes £143 million of “Budget Cover transfers” in relation to Test and Trace/vaccination. The UK Government did not classify this as a COVID-19 Barnett Consequential but has been included in this total for completeness. They are not considered to be COVID-19 consequentials within the Audit Scotland report detailed below.

Audit Scotland have prepared a number of independent reports into Scotland’s response to COVID. The most recent update, a report titled ‘Scotland’s financial response to COVID-19: Spending update’, was published on 29th March 2023 and can be found online here. The report covers the period up to the end of financial year 2021/22 and confirms that the Scottish Government has received £14.4 billion of consequentials and had allocated £15.5 billion in its response to the pandemic.

We received confirmation from the UK Government that no further COVID-19 consequentials would be received after the end of the 2021-22 financial year. As no further funding has been received we are no longer directly tracking COVID spend against this funding.

This is a formal notice that all the information you have requested is available from the Scottish Government and Audit Scotland websites, as detailed above. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Allocation of funding – regional split

The Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested.

The Scottish Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was not managed on a regional basis and we do not hold information on allocations in the format you have requested. As such we are unable to provide you with a percentage split for allocations of COVID-19 support by region.

From a public finance perspective there is no uniformly applied definition of Scottish regions. Where services are provided on a regional basis there may be differences between how an area defines a region which mean we cannot trace information consistently. From a COVID-19 perspective this is most evident when contrasting the regions which make up NHS Health Boards and local authorities.

The financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic was provided through a range of different routes including, but not limited to, local authorities, NHS Health Boards, other bodies and support provided directly to private operators. Specific regional information may be available if you contact these areas directly.

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

Allocation of funding – Health boards

The tables below show the breakdown of the £2.73 billion and £2.64 billion of health and sport, and health and social care expenditure by NHS Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) for 2020/21 and 2021/22 respectively.

The breakdown of categories by NHS Boards uses forecast costs provided by the organisations to Scottish Government, these figures are pre annual account audit process so there were adjustments made centrally after the submission of these forecasts.

Furthermore, the categories include a breakdown of the costs where possible, however, for many of the total costs, there is additional reported expenditure related to funding that was not ring-fenced for a specific purpose. Therefore, as the expenditure tied to this funding varied across NHS Boards and HSCPs, and was not reported back to the Scottish Government on a consistent basis, an internal adjustment row has been included to address the variations.

2020/21 Breakdown

See Annex 1

2021/22 Breakdown

See Annex 2

Allocation of funding – general

The information you have requested is available on the Scottish Government’s website.

The Scottish Government has provided a detailed breakdown of all COVID-19 allocations previously, including in the response to an FOI of 21 November 2023 which can be found online here.

These amounts total £14.855 billion.

Formal allocations of funding and actual spend on COVID-19 support measures will not necessarily be the same amount. Full details of Covid spend have been published in both the 2020-21 and 2021-22 Consolidated Accounts. Links to which are included below.

2020-21 Additional information on COVID spend can be found from page 50 onwards

2021-22 Additional information on COVID-19 spend can be found from page 45 onwards

Total spend on COVID-19 support measures totals £14.540 billion.

This is a formal notice that all the information you have requested is available from the Scottish Government website, as detailed above. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

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 202400399951 - Information Released - Annex 1

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1 page PDF

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111.4 kB

FOI 202400399951 - Information Released - Annex 2

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1 page PDF

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201.8 kB