Payments to external suppliers: FOI release

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.


Information requested

Information on all payments to external suppliers for purchases of goods and services between 2021-01-01 and 2021-12-31 to include:

  • Supplier name
  • Amount paid, excluding VAT
  • Payment date (or some other relevant transaction date)
  • A unique invoice-id or a transaction-id number for each payment.
  • Some description of the nature of the expense

Response

Please see the attached Annex which provides you with details of all payments to external suppliers for purchases of goods and services between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021, and includes the following detail:

  • Supplier name
  • Amount paid, excluding VAT
  • Payment date (or some other relevant transaction date)
  • Some description of the nature of the expense

Please note that invoice numbers have not been provided as the format of invoice numbers are specific to organisations and fraudsters may use this information to create realistic invoices in order to defraud.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the supplier names within the Annex because an exemption under section 38(1) (b), personal information of FOISA applies to that information because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. teachers who work for Education Scotland on a self-employed basis, and disclosing their names would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

This exemption is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.

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.

FOI 202200320833 - Information released

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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