COVID-19 costs: FOI release

Information requested

COVID-19 costs, split by financial year:

1. The total money spent by the Scottish Government on COVID-19 and the COVID-19 response from 01/01/2020 to 25/04/2023.
2. The total money spent by the Scottish Government on COVID-19 related furlough from 01/01/2020 to 25/04/2023.
3. The total money spent by the Scottish Government on COVID-19 related business support from 01/01/2020 to 25/04/2023.
4. The total money spent by the Scottish Government on the purchase, transportation and administering the COVID-19 vaccines from 01/01/2020 to 25/04/2023, including an individual breakdown of each item.

Response

1. COVID-19 total spend:

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic up to 31 March 2022 the Scottish Government has spent £14.5 billion on COVID-19 measures. Details of this spend has been disclosed in the annual accounts, here and here, as well as the provisional and final outturn exercises for both years. The split of the figures between financial years is:

• 2020-21 - £8.766 billion
• 2021-22 - £5.764 billion

Audit Scotland produced a detailed report on Scotland's response to COVID-19. Details of this can be found online here.

We have received confirmation from the UK Government that no further COVID-19 funding would be received after the end of the 2021-22 financial year. As no further funding has been received we are no longer directly tracking COVID-19 spend.

Despite the end of funding the Scottish Government continues to invest in the country's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes continued investment in the NHS as well as the Scottish Courts recovery programme. This funding forms part of the baseline budgets of the portfolios.

2. Furlough:

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme was a UK Government policy and was fully administered and funded by the UK Government. The Scottish Government spent no money on the furlough scheme.

3. COVID-19 Business Support:

Start of the pandemic in spring 2020 the Scottish Government has spent over £4.7 billion in business support which has been used to help mitigate the economic impacts of the virus. These amounts are split by financial year as follows:

• 2020-21 - £3.165 billion
• 2021-22 - £1.599 billion
• 2022-23 - £4 million

A detailed analysis of the Scottish Government's COVID-19 business support was published online here. In addition to the Scottish Government publication, the Audit Scotland report includes additional details on the breakdown of COVID-19 Business Support. Details of this can be found online here.

Please note that there are no further COVID-19 business support measures.

4. COVID-19 Vaccine costs

Some of the information you requested is included below. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information that you have requested and the reasons for this are set out below.

Vaccine Purchase

Nil cost to Scottish Government as this is paid by the UK Government.

Transportation and administering:

Some of the information you requested is not held in the format requested:

Due to the shared nature of the Scottish Government's vaccine supply chain, COVID and Flu vaccination costs cannot be reliably split. In addition, vaccines are administered by Health Boards and the cost of administration in isolation is not reported to or held by the Scottish Government. This would require to be requested from Health Boards: Organisations – Scotland's Health on the Web

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. However, in order to assist with your enquiry as far as possible the following information is provided:

Total flu and vaccine costs as reported by Health Boards to the Scottish Government

Year	£'000
2020/21	58,900
2021/22	273,000
2022/23	165,558

Storage and Distribution (transportation) - (included within the table above)

Due to the shared nature of the Scottish Government's vaccine supply chain, COVID and Flu vaccination storage and distribution cannot be reliably split. Therefore we are unable to identify COVID specific costs. The storage and distribution totals below are the combined COVID and Flu costs.

Period	£
01/01/2020 - 31/03/2020	While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information that you have requested.
01/04/2020 - 31/03/2021	683,014.09
01/04/2021 - 31/03/2022	1,941,969.46
01/04/2022 - 31/03/2023	2,269,171.45
01/04/2023 - 25/04/2023	While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information that you have requested.

In addition, further information on vaccination spending is available from:

COVID-19: Vaccination programme (audit-scotland.gov.uk)

Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts: year ended 31 March 2022 - 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.