Events to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II costing £18.8m: FOI release

Information requested

The chief secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, yesterday said that the events to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II last year cost the public an estimated £161.7m. In a written statement, it was estimated that the Scottish Government spent £18.8m out of this total.

1. Please can you break down exactly what the £18.8m was spent on? (i.e. the item/service purchased, how much the item/service cost, the date of purchase, who the item/service was purchased from, whether the item/service was used).

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exemptions under Section 17 (information not held) and Section 12(1) (complying will exceed the upper cost limit) of FOISA apply to that information.

The £18.8m was spent by public bodies who were directly involved in the delivery of Operation Unicorn and is detailed in the table which follows. This total was recovered in full from His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) and paid to the Scottish Government, which in turn transferred these costs to each organisation.

We do not hold the information requested regarding the item/service costs for organisations outwith the Scottish Government under exemption Section 17(1) (Information not held), so you are welcome to contact each organisation directly to request this.

Organisation	Total (£)
Scottish Government Core	1,655,776
Transport Scotland	287,073
Court of the Lord Lyon	64,407
Event Scotland	12,224
Scottish Parliament	123,229
Police Scotland	15,402,786
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service	84,850
Scottish Ambulance Service	216,780
Aberdeenshire Council	148,147
Aberdeen City Council	132,752
Angus Council	31,650
Dundee City Council	88,411
City of Edinburgh Council	506,998
NHS Grampian	509
TOTAL	18,755,592

The cost to the Scottish Government to deliver Operation Unicorn in Scotland, following the death of Her Majesty The Queen, was £1.655m, which was recovered in full from HMT.

We are unable to provide a breakdown of every item/service purchased, the cost, date, supplier and use as this falls under exemption Section 12 (Excessive cost of compliance). We can however break down the Scottish Government costs into seven functional areas, which are detailed in the table which follows:

Functional Area	Total Cost (£)
SG Employee additional costs, overtime, travel & subsistence*	127,698.38
Contracted Staff Costs	7,772.31
Contracted Services (including Catering, Building Hire, AV Equipment)	20,647.46
Contracted Event Services	1,489,207.98
Communication & Marketing	3,389.59
Infrastructure	106.29
Transport and Vehicle Hire	6,953.50
TOTAL	1,655,775.51

*This does not include normal salary costs for Scottish Government staff.

In this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost 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.

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