Sustainable procurement of furniture and office equipment: FOI release

Information requested

"I would like to request information on the Scottish Government’s policy for buying preowned/recycled versus new equipment. Specifically, I would like information on what buying standards are employed and whether pre-owned/recycled goods are given preference.

Could you please provide me with:

1. How much the Scottish Government has spent on purchasing new equipment e.g. office supplies, furniture, etc. over the past three years?

2. A breakdown of the proportion of equipment purchases over the past three years that were specifically pre-owned or recycled goods.

3. Any information available on the carbon impact of purchases over the past three years and estimated savings from purchasing pre-owned/recycled goods."

Response

1. How much the Scottish Government has spent on purchasing new equipment e.g. office supplies, furniture, etc. over the past three years?

Data, as per our interpretation of your request, according to procurement through the Scottish Government’s Facilities Management contract and searches through financial tracking systems is as follows.

	2021	2022	2023	Total Combined
Scottish Government’s Facilities Management contract spend on furniture	£19,270.80	£839,342.08	£840,617.22	£1,699,230.10
Financial tracking systems for spend against Furniture & Fittings account code(s)	£165,523.14	£12,365.10	£8,907.25	£186,795.49
Financial tracking systems for spend against Office Equipment account code(s)	£268,915.38	£46,406.86	£68,116.13	£383,438.37

If our interpretation of your request is inaccurate, please contact us with more detail and we will be happy to undertake further searches.

2. A breakdown of the proportion of equipment purchases over the past three years that were specifically pre-owned or recycled goods.

The Scottish Government is committed to re-using and recycling furniture. This includes reupholstering existing furniture for re-use on our estate, repurposing items with other public bodies and ethical disposal of any end-of-life product. Our first approach is to consider re-using our existing furniture rather than procure new.

From the list supplied in answer to question one regarding furniture purchase with Mitie, 12 of the transactions were upholstered furniture and therefore recycled goods. This accounted to a total spend of £15,322 in the last three years.

Regulation 10(4)(a) - Information Not Held is applied to the second two lines in the table provided in answer to question one. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because searches have not identified this level of detail for these types of purchases.

3. Any information available on the carbon impact of purchases over the past three years and estimated savings from purchasing pre-owned/recycled goods.

Regulation 10(4)(a) - Information Not Held. The Scottish Government do not have access to data which records the carbon impact of supplied goods.

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 202300393769 - Information Released - Annex

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