National Standardised Assessments for Scotland (NSA) platform payments: FOI release

Information requested

Confirmation of how the SNSA (ACER) and the NSA (AlphaPlus) pupil standardised assessments are paid for.

Specifically, you asked if the Scottish Government pays the providers directly and to provide the annual payment figures for ACER  (2017-2022) and AlphaPlus (2021-current).

Response

The Scottish Government pays our supplier directly for the National Standardised Assessments for Scotland (NSA) platform and related services including a service desk, and training provision. Local authorities do not pay for the assessments or the related support services.

Please find a breakdown of annual payments to ACER and AlphaPlus below. Please note that in some years, there is supplier overlap due to contractual handover periods. It is also worth noting that AlphaPlus supply the Gaelic equivalent MCNG assessments, in addition to the SNSA, whereas ACER provided only the SNSA.

Financial Year	SNSA Platform provider	Spend (£)
2017-18	ACER	£2,238,897.14
2018-19	ACER	£3,676,901.59
2019-20	ACER	£3,544,963.39
2020-21	ACER	£1,917,933.51
2021-22	ACER/AlphaPlus	£3,616,401.07 / £832,626.91
2022-23	ACER/AlphaPlus	£1,724,594.08 / £3,739,108.21
2023-24 (Apr 2023 to Jan 2024)	AlphaPlus	£2,265,638.88

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