Catering Costs for Internal Functions and Meetings: FOI release

Information requested

1. Information around costs of catering for internal functions/meetings that is not paid for by individuals (i.e. those that come out of the Scottish Government Taxpayers pocket). If possible could this be broken down into Public Board Meetings and Other Meetings.

2. For financial years 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.

Response

You requested information around costs of catering for internal functions/meetings that is not paid for by individuals for financial years 2022/2023 and 2023/2024.

You asked for this to be broken down into Public Board Meetings and Other Meetings. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. The reason why this is the case, is that we do not hold a breakdown of the information in the form you have requested.

All hospitality must be ordered in line with SG guiding principles, which include approval at an appropriate level prior to ordering. Hospitality can be purchased though catering contractors (including The Scottish Government’s catering supplier) and via electronic purchasing cards (ePC) where this has been previously approved at Director level.

Hospitality is not normally provided for meetings which don’t involve external visitors, therefore the figures noted below are not attended exclusively by internal Scottish Government Staff.

Financial year	Catering (Spend)
2022/2023	£60,776.19
2023/2024	£206,016.12

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.