Spending over the last four financial years in various policy areas: FOI release

Information requested

Please confirm how much has been spent over the last four financial years (including this year to date) on the following policy areas:

1. Restricting alcohol advertising and promotion
2. Deposit return scheme
3. Highly Protected Marine Areas
4. Fairer Council Tax
5. Restricting promotions of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt.

This should include the cost of consultation exercises, production of reports and policy development, and also the cost of time spent on each policy area by civil servants.

Response

Parts 1, 4 & 5 will be responded to under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).

For parts 2 & 3, as the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response to your request

I have interpreted your request to be asking for expenditure in the following four financial years:

2023-24 (until 2 November 2023 inclusive)
2022-23
2021-22
2020-21

I have provided a separate response below for each of the five policy areas you have requested information about.

1. Restricting alcohol advertising and promotion policy area.

RESPONSE PROVIDED UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 (FOISA)

I have interpreted your question to ask for expenditure related to restricting alcohol advertising and promotion policy development. I am providing most of the information you requested in the format you asked for in the table below:

2023-24 (YTD)	£49,743
2022-23	£4,721
2021-22	£0
2020-21	£0
TOTAL	£54,464

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 an exemption under section 17(1) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why that exemption applies are explained below.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because we don’t hold information on a breakdown of staffing costs/staffing time spent on alcohol marketing – the team work across a number of aspects of alcohol harm prevention and this cannot be disaggregated.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

2. Deposit return scheme

RESPONSE PROVIDED UNDER THE ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS 2004 (EIRs)

Please find below spend on the Deposit Return Scheme over the last four financial years, including and up to 2 November 2023. This includes costs associated with the publication of updated regulations, evaluations, independent reviews and assurance.

2023/24 (YTD)	£21,547.64
2022/23	£23,315.02
2021/22	£88,307.64
2020/21	£9,973.00
Total Spend	£143,143.30

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 an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are explained below.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because Civil Servants operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of their work at any given time. They do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time spent working on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to provide an expenditure figure regarding how much the Scottish Government has spent on work by Civil Servants involved with the Deposit Return Scheme.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the cost of time spent on this policy area by civil servants, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

It is important to note that although we do not hold the information and have applied Regulation 10(4)(a) – information not held, it is a requirement that we have to apply the public interest test. Under regulation 5(1) of the EIRs, a Scottish public authority that holds environmental information must make it available when requested to do so. This duty is not absolute. In some cases, information is excepted from disclosure, under regulations 10 and 11 of the EIRs. However, all of the exceptions in regulation 10 (and parts of regulation 11) are subject to a public interest test. To clarify, even though we do not hold the information, because we are using EIRs Exception 10(4)(a) in response to your request, we are required to apply a public interest test.

Guidance can be found in the Key Concepts section under ‘Information Not Held’ and ‘The Public Interest Test’ in the linked Scottish Information Commissioner Briefings and Guidance document. Further guidance on the public interest test can also be found on page 8 of the Scottish InformationCommissioner guidance.

3. Highly Protected Marine Areas

RESPONSE PROVIDED UNDER THE ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS 2004 (EIRs)

Please find below spend on Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) over the last four financial years, including and up until 2 November 2023.

2023-24 (YTD)	£37,332.43
2022-23	£61,538.38
2021-22	£0
2020-21	£0
Total	£98,870.81

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 an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are explained below.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because Civil Servants operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of their work at any given time. They do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of their time spent working on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to provide an expenditure figure regarding how much the Scottish Government has spent on work by Civil Servants involved with Highly Protected Marine Areas.

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee and Nature Scot provided advice in the development of consultation documents and during the consultation process, however there is no business requirement for officials of either body to allocate their time spent working on tasks for the Marine Directorate between the different tasks they perform for us, for example time spent on tasks relating to the consultation, or their work more generally. Given we do not hold details of the time spent by individuals undertaking these tasks, we are unable to provide details of the total costs that you have specified.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the cost of time spent on this policy area by civil servants, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

The Scottish Government has already published its costs for the development of the Highly Protected Marine Areas policy in the 2022-2023 financial year under its response to a previous EIR request handled under case reference number 202300368709. I have included the total cost for this financial year in the table above for completion, but if you would like to view the full breakdown of those costs, then please use the following web link: Development of Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs): EIR release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) I would like to advise you that, I am also providing a web link to a previous EIR response we answered under case reference 202300352032 on 17 May 2023, which may be of interest to you. Our response here specifically provides the costs associated to date (up to and including 17 April 2023) in the Consultation Process relative to the plans to make at least 10% of Scottish Seas Waters Highly Protected Marine Areas: Cost to date associated with Scottish Highly Protected Marine Areas: EIR release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

4. Fairer Council Tax

RESPONSE PROVIDED UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 (FOISA)

I have interpreted your question to ask for expenditure related to the Fairer Council Tax Consultation. I am providing most of the information you requested in the format you asked for in the table below:

2023-24 (YTD)	£31,853
2022-23	£0
2021-22	£0
2020-21	£0
TOTAL	£31,853

This relates only to the cost of publishing the Fairer Council Tax consultation, and the cost of an independent third party to analyse the consultation responses, up until the date of your request.

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 an exemption under section 17(1) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why that exemption applies are explained below.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because we don’t hold information on a breakdown of staffing costs/staffing time spent on the Fairer Council Tax Consultation – the team work across a number of aspects of Local Tax policy and this cannot be disaggregated.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

5. Restricting promotions of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt.

RESPONSE PROVIDED UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 (FOISA)

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested in relation to restricting promotions of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt (HFSS). The table below provides a breakdown of Scottish Government spending around consideration of restricting promotions of HFSS foods in financial years 2020-21 to 2023-24 (YTD):

2023-24 (YTD)	£27,465.61
2022-23	£80,199.01
2021-22	£0
2020-21	£10,000.00
TOTAL	£117,664.62

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 an exemption under section 17(1) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why that exemption applies are explained below.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because we don’t hold information on a breakdown of staffing costs/staffing time spent on restricting promotions of HFSS food – the team work across a number of aspects of diet and healthy weight and this cannot be disaggregated.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Under our section 15 duty to provide advice and assistance under FOISA, we are providing a web link to a previous FOI response we answered under case reference 202300376246 on 12 October 2023 which may be of interest to you: Junk food consultation: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

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.