Advertising spend by the Scottish Government: FOI release

Information requested

1. You asked for advertising spend by the Scottish Government broken down by media outlet for each of the last three financial years. Please include both print and broadcast outlets.

2. Details of all payments made to Newsquest in the same time period, broken down by year.

Response

1. We have provided below links to the Scottish Government published spend for financial years 2020/21 to 2022/23. The media spend is published on an annual basis, broken down by financial year and media channel.

• 2020/21: Marketing spend 2020 to 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2021/22: Marketing spend 2021 to 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• 2022/23: Marketing spend 2022 to 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

2. 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 Scottish Government does not place bookings with individual media owners, bookings are placed via the contracted media agency via the Media Planning, Buying and Associated Services Framework Agreement – Ref: SP-18-007. Over the previous three financial years, the appointed media agency has placed bookings with media sales companies including Mediaforce who in turn have made payments to news groups and titles including Newsquest. Negotiations and payments are undertaken directly between the media sales company and news groups and titles, therefore we do not hold this information. You may wish to contact Newsquest directly for this information.

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.