Scottish public sector spend: 2020 to 2021

Footnote

All figures in this report were obtained from the Scottish Procurement Information Hub – The Scottish Government's spend analytics solution.

Information held on the Scottish Procurement Information Hub is based on the Accounts Payable data from 106 participating Scottish public sector bodies for 2020-2021 and provides the basis for the preceding graphics.

The accounts payable data is enhanced from publicly available sources in order to classify suppliers by size, location and area of business.

The total procurement spend captured is higher than the total spend analysed. This is because only spend figures for suppliers that have been classed as commercial organisations or as non-trade social care providers and with whom individual public bodies have spent over £1000 in aggregate in a 12 month period, are analysed.

Data is revalidated regularly and may be subject to change as additional information about suppliers is gained. It is however, correct at the date of retrieval.

Supplier size is based only on number of employees where known.

An SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) is defined as a supplier with less than 250 employees.

Supplier number information is based on clustered groupings of a combination of supplier name, address or classification information, not the legal entity for each supplier. Therefore these figures are estimated only.

Geographical spend is based on known postcodes. The postcode is obtained from a supplier's invoice address.

Regions and local authority boundaries are determined by areas specified by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

Commodity categories are based on the supplier's main area of business and not the goods and services purchased.

The Scottish public sector has been divided into four sub sectors. These are NHS, Higher and Further Education, Local Authorities and Central Government organisations (including core Scottish Government).

The data is owned by each individual Scottish public sector body.