Direct funding to new public bodies: FOI release

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.


Information requested

From the 2007/08 financial year to present, including the budgeted amount for the current year, expenditure by the Scottish Government on providing funding to public bodies which did not exist as of 1 January 2007, broken down by public body.

Response

Please find the attached list of arms-length bodies established after 1 January 2007 as a helpful reference in Microsoft Word format.

The budget and actual funding provided by the Scottish Government to each arms-length body in any financial year will be included in the published, audited accounts for each of these organisations. As part of the financial statements, within the Statement of Changes of Tax Payers Equity, there will be reference to Scottish Government Funding. These accounts can be found online on the arms-length bodies websites - links to these are provided on the National public bodies: directory
(https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/).

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. 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.

If accounts are not published online going back to 2007-08, we would advise you to contact the armslength bodies individually, as the Scottish Government does not centrally hold all these records. However, as a useful starting point, a summary of budgeted annual expenditure for some arms-length bodies is available on the Scottish Government website as it is contained within the published Budget Bill each year. Please find the following links for information going back to 2016:

2023/24: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2023-24/documents/
2022/23: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2022-23/documents/
2021/22: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2021-22/documents/
2020/21: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2020-21/documents/
2019/20: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2019-20/documents/
2018/19: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-draft-budget-2018-19/documents/
2017/18: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-budget-draft-budget-2017-18/documents/
2016/17: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scotlands-finances-key-facts-figures/documents/
2015/16: https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/21090/1/00460440.pdf

The budget bill is disaggregated at different levels. Level 1 is the overall portfolio, L2 lines are the main funding areas within each portfolio and there is further disaggregation of the budget down to Level 4. The main budget bill document shows the budgets down to Level 3. A detailed spreadsheet is published alongside the budget bill, called ‘Scottish Budget - Level 4 Data’. If the arms length bodies you are interested in is not detailed within the main Budget Bill document, this spreadsheet can be searched to find the initial allocations down to Level 4 across all the portfolios. However, the budget bill does not show every single public body separately at a disaggregated level. A lot of public bodies are individually included within the budget bill, but some, particularly the smaller ones, are merged with other areas within one L4 portfolio line. This is particularly the case with the portfolios covering Justice and Education expenditure, given the volume of public bodies in these areas.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202400440105 - Information released - Annex

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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