The Scottish Business Pledge: FOI release

Information requested

1. The number of private sector businesses operating in Scotland that have signed up to the Scottish Business Pledge since its inception? (please do not include any public sector organisations in this figure)

2. A breakdown of private sector businesses that have signed up to the Scottish Businesses Pledge in each of the following years: (please do not include any public sector organisations in this figure)
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019

3. Since inception, how many (a) employee-owned businesses and (b) co-operatives have signed up to the Scottish Business Pledge?

4. From the total number of private sector businesses that have signed the Scottish Business Pledge, what proportion have signed up to each of the following elements. Please provide a percentage breakdown for each element. (please do not include any public sector organisations in this figure)

- Environmental impact
- Investing in a Skilled and Diverse Workforce
- Workforce Engagement
- Innovation
- Internalisation
- Support your community
- Prompt Payment

Response

The information you have requested is available on the Scottish Business Pledge website –

https://scottishbusinesspledge.scot/news/?_sft_news_categories=pledge-statistics

The next quarterly statistics are due for publication in December 2019.

The Scottish Business Pledge is aimed at business organisations and social enterprises, however, there are a small number of educational institutions, only some of which are considered as public sector, included in the figures. The numbers of these colleges are not sufficiently high to significantly influence the overall view of Business Pledge commitments.

In response to part 3 of your query, the type of business model such as employee-owned or cooperatives is not collated.

At part 4 of your query, you asked what proportion of businesses have committed to a list of elements. Those elements are from the revised structure, applicable from 10 October 2019 and we will be unable to report on these elements until after end of March 2020. The proportion for the relevant elements for the majority of the timeframes you have requested are included in the website statistics.

Please also see Annex A for exemptions to the request.

ANNEX A
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

An exemption under section Section 25 (1) - Information otherwise accessible
Section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the Act) exempts information from disclosure where the requester can reasonably obtain the information without making a request for it.

Section 27 (1) - Information intended for future publication
The exemption in section 27(1) allows public authorities to refuse to disclose information if they already plan to publish it within the next 12 weeks.

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.