Departmental cost of restaurant and bar use: FOI release

Information requested

What is the departmental cost of restaurant and bar use since 5 July 2024, broken down by week?

Response

The answer to your question is.

Spend data has been downloaded from the corporate Electronic Payment Card system (ePC), the data has been filtered to search for merchant category group ‘RESTAURANTS AND BARS’ (physical card) and ‘EATING PLACES, RESTAURANTS’ and ‘FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS’ (Travel & Subsistence card).

The data cannot be filtered to departmental level, spend by Directorate is shown in the tables below.

The merchant category code, or MCC, is a four-digit code used by the bank card industry to group providers into market categories. When a supplier takes payment cards, the acquiring financial institution assigns the MCC, MCC’s are then grouped together.

Dataset is 05/07/2024 to 20/08/2024

ePC – Physical Card

Directorate	14/07/24	21/07/24	28/07/24	04/08/24	11/08/24	18/08/24	Total
Directorate for EU Office		£56.69	£58.31			£40.60	£155.60
Directorate for External Affairs		£309.93		£14.40	£9.80	£96.55	£430.68
Directorate for Marine Scotland	£155.18				£ 38.55		£193.73
Grand Total							£780.01

ePC – Travel & Subsistence Card

Directorate	14/07/24	21/07/24	11/08/24	18/08/24	Total
Directorate for Communications and Ministerial Support	£43.00	£21.90	-	£15.10	£80.00
Directorate for Corporation Transformation and Workforce	-	-	£7.52	-	£7.52
Grand Total					£87.52

The Travel & Subsistence data separate to ePC spend is held where staff have claimed expenses within Scottish Government subsistence limits when travelling on official business, however we do not hold spend data on the subsistence location or venue. Staff are unable to claim for alcohol on expenses.

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