Public spending on Scotland's full fibre charter: FOI release

Information requested

Information regarding public spending on Scotland's Full Fibre Charter.

Response

Scottish Government investment in broadband infrastructure

For this response it is assumed the reference to ‘£600M worth of investment in broadband’ in the request relates to the over £600 million Reaching 100% (R100) contracts.

The three R100 contracts (North, Central and South) were awarded by Scottish Government to BT plc, with the infrastructure being delivered by their delivery partners, Openreach. More information on R100 can be found here: About R100 | Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband.

Information regarding the number and location of premises contracted for delivery through the R100 contracts can be found here: Data insights | Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband.

Please note that, while the vast majority of R100 contract connections will be full fibre, a small number of fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connections have been delivered as part of contract rollout.

R100 contract payments

The R100 contracts are gap funded, meaning that the Scottish Government subsidises the successful bidder, in this case BT plc, to deliver connections to premises which would not otherwise be commercially viable. Subsidy is only paid once premises have been delivered and delivery milestones have been achieved. The R100 contracts are primarily funded by the Scottish Government with investment from BT plc and additional funding provided by the UK Government. Information on the funding split for the R100 contracts can be found here: R100 funding | Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband

Scotland’s Full Fibre Charter

While the Scottish Government is directly subsidising the deployment of broadband infrastructure through the R100 contracts together with the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme, most broadband deployment in Scotland is driven by commercial investment.

The Scottish Government developed Scotland’s Full Fibre Charter to create an environment that encourages and promotes sustained commercial investment in Scotland’s full fibre broadband networks. To do this, Scotland’s Full Fibre Charter provides a framework for collaboration between the Scottish Government and telecoms operators on issues influencing commercial full fibre network deployment.

More information on the Charter and how it operates can be found here: Scotland’s Full Fibre Charter - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

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.