Scottish Government paid to Holyrood Communications for conference and events: FOI release

Information requested

1. How much Scottish Government departments paid to Holyrood Communications for conference and events sponsorship, aggregated by department, for each financial year from 2018-2023.

2. How much Scottish Government departments paid to Holyrood Communications for attendance fees at Holyrood conferences and events, aggregated by department, for each financial year from 2018-2023.

3. How much Scottish Government departments paid to Holyrood Communications for advertising in any or all of its publications, aggregated by department, for each financial year from 2018-2023.

4. How much Scottish Government departments paid to Holyrood Communications for advertorial content, aggregated by department, for each financial year from 2018-2023.

5. Please provide details of all dates between 2019 until January 2024 where Scottish Government Ministers attended in a speaker capacity.

6 .Please provide details of all dates between 2019 until January 2024 where Scottish Government employees attended in a speaker capacity.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested, based on what our ledger tells us though account codes.

1-4

DG	Account	2018	2019	2020	2022	2023
DG Communities	40101160 – Conference Costs	1,230,00		20,000.00
DG Corporate	40100860 - Advertising				900.00
DG Education and Justice	40101795 – Conference Fees	294.00
DG Health and Social Care	40101795 – Conference Fees		199.00			90.00
DG Net Zero	40101160 – Conference Costs	294.00
DG Strategy and External Affairs	40101795 – Conference Fees				468.00
Grand Total		1,818.00	199.00	20,000.00	1,368.00	90.00

5 - Ministerial engagements (including where Ministers attend as speaker), travel and gifts are routinely and proactively published on the Scottish Governmentwebsite and is available at: Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Therefore I am advising you that under Section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which already reasonably accessible to you. Most of the information you have requested (up to and including December 2023) can be found on the link above. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

The remainder of the information (January 2024) will be published shortly, therefore I am advising you that Section 27(1) of FOISA applies to this information. This exemption allows public authorities to refuse to disclose information if they already plan to publish it within the next 12 weeks. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

6 - 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. The reason for this is that in order to locate and retrieve that information, we would need to conduct a search of all records held by the Scottish Government. It may help if I explain that we file our information according to the subject matter, and do not hold a central record of the names or numbers of Scottish Government colleagues who attend Holyrood Communication conferences or events. 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 matter(s) of the Holyrood Communication conferences or events you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. 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.

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.