Cost of equipment for home working from February 2020 - September 2021: FOI release

Information requested

A breakdown in costs of moving civil servants to a home-working routine from February 2020 – present day, including:

• electronic equipment (e.g. monitors and printers)
• furniture (e.g. office chairs and desks)
• bills covered by the Scottish Government (e.g. broadband/heating)

Response

The cost of electronic equipment and furniture associated with moving civil servants to a home-working routine recorded centrally between February 2020 and September 2021 was £471,144.58.

Breakdown of Costs from February 2020 - September 2021
Purchased Item	Cost (£)
Chair	279083.84
Desk	15919.33
Lumbar	8870.16
Laptop stand	97309.39
Cables	1582.91
Headphones	3786.92
Keyboard / Mouse	51286.96
Monitor	3995.67
Printer ink	5862.97
Equipment not specified	3446.43
TOTAL	£471,144.58

Centrally recorded costs include equipment and furniture ordered through the Workplace Division and expenses clamed back as travel and subsistence. Equipment may also have been purchased via electronic procurement card (ePC) by individual directorates and teams. Home-working items purchased by ePC are not categorised in the format you requested and to process the purchase data into the requested format would exceed the £600 limit.

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12. You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example requesting homeworking items purchased by a specific department. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his
website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

The cost of any bills (e.g. broadband/heating) covered by the Scottish Government If a staff member’s home broadband doesn't cover home-working hours, then expenses can be reclaimed with relevant documentation to support the claim. The total cost of broadband claims recorded is £2,492.62.

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.