Free period products scheme costs breakdown: FOI release

Information requested

1. How much money has the free period products scheme put in law by the Scottish Government cost in total with breakdown per year and breakdown on what the money has been spent on?

2. How much money has been spent by the Scottish government on the free bikes for school children scheme in total, including a breakdown per year and what the money has been spent on?

3. How many bikes were handed out and how many applications were made?

4. Patrick Harvie said in March that funding for the project ran out at the end of March and “ We are currently considering how best to continue delivery from April 2023." Has a decision been made and what is this decision? Will more funding be released for this scheme and if so, how much has been earmarked?

5. Has any analysis been done on the success of this initiative and if so could you supply this analysis?

6. Could you supply the risk register for the free bikes scheme if one was produced?

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons we don't have the information requested are explained below.

1. How much money has the free period products scheme put in law by the Scottish Government cost in total with breakdown per year and breakdown on what the money has been spent on?

Total cost and breakdown per year

The total cost of this legal requirement is £16,634,665[1]. This is broken down by year in Table 1 below.

Table 1

2020/21	£2,086,000
2021/22	£2,086,000
2022/23	£6,356,415
2023/24	£6,106,250
Total	£16,634,665

Please note that the total figure provided for the financial year 2020/21 includes funding for the then voluntary school provisions up to and including 18 October 2020. Also, the total figure provided for the financial year 2022/23 includes funding for voluntary provisions in colleges, universities and community settings up to and including 14 August 2022.

For your information, the Scottish Funding Council publishes annual funding allocations for access to free period products in colleges and universities on their website. These are available for Financial Year 2022/23 and Financial Year 2023/24. The Scottish Government has also previously published information on funding to each individual local authority for access to free period products in their schools and community settings for the financial years 2018/19 to 2022/23.

Breakdown by spend

As part of the Scottish Government’s Access to period products: monitoring and evaluation strategy 2021/22 to 2024/25, data was requested from all local authorities, on the costs associated with the delivery of access to free period products incurred between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. The data provided contains spend information for both the statutory provisions in schools and the voluntary provisions in community settings. It is not possible to disaggregate the information. We have therefore provided at Table 2 the full spend information received from local authorities.

Table 2

Spend type	Number of products	Amount spent
Single-use period products	4,941,120	£649,104
Reusable period products	57,767	£290,621
All period products*	-	£461,837
Admin costs	-	£831,865
Other costs	-	£20,954
Total		£2,254,380

*provided only where a breakdown of single-use/reusable products was unavailable.

The amount provided in Table 1 above for the financial year 2022/23 includes funding of £24,515 awarded to FareShare (covering August and September) to deliver access to free period products to low income families through third sector partners. It also includes additional funding of £161,900 awarded to five bodies via a ‘bid-in’ fund for local authorities, colleges and universities, to support delivery where evidence showed their full funding allocations had been, or were projected to be, fully spent by the end of the financial year.

When applying to the ‘bid-in’ fund, applicants were required to provide a breakdown of their spend during 2022/23. The colleges that submitted successful bids to the fund also subsequently provided reports on how the additional funding provided was spent. A breakdown of this information in relation to the seven bodies which applied for funding is held at Table 3 below.

Table 3[2]

Spend type	Number of products	Amount spent
Single-use period products	591,588	£77,574
Reusable period products	11,037	£39,485
Additional period products	4,069	£48,335
All period products*	62,575	£65,238
Admin costs	-	£150,772
Other costs	-	£3,000
Total		£384,404

*provided only where a breakdown of single-use/reusable products was unavailable.

[1] Subject to the caveats provided on funding for voluntary provisions[2] Please note this information also includes data received in partially completed ‘bid-in’ fund applications that did not progress to fully completed applications.

2. How much money has been spent by the Scottish government on the free bikes for school children scheme in total, including a breakdown per year and what the money has been spent on?

Financial Year	Capital	Resource
21-22	£961,745	£536,456
22-23	£1,761,029	£747,555

3. How many bikes were handed out and how many applications were made?

The total number of bikes issued during the free bikes pilot to the end of March 2023 was 3800. We do not hold information on number of applications as none of the pilot projects had a formal application process. See the answer to point 5 below for more information on project referral and eligibility processes.

4. Patrick Harvie said in March that funding for the project ran out at the end of March and “ We are currently considering how best to continue delivery from April 2023." Has a decision been made and what is this decision? Will more funding be released for this scheme and if so, how much has been earmarked?

This information is already in the public domain and can be found at the Scottish Parliamentary Questions website (Questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website) under reference number S6W-18641.

5. Has any analysis been done on the success of this initiative and if so could you supply this analysis?

Research Scotland conducted an independent evaluation into the free bikes pilot programme. This evaluation can be found here: Evaluation of Free Bikes Pilots for School Age Children Who Cannot Afford Them - Final Evaluation Report | Transport Scotland.

6. Could you supply the risk register for the free bikes scheme if one was produced?

See attached.

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 202300372686 - Information Released - Annex

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