Scotland's International Development Alliance (SIDA) funding: FOI release

Information requested

1. In each year since 2019-20, including the current year to date how much funding has been given by the Scottish Government to Scotland's International Development Alliance (SIDA)?

2. Any correspondence (including emails, letters, phone calls, handwritten notes, WhatsApp messages or any other documents) between the office of the First Minister and the Office of Frances Guy, Chief executive of SIDA. Information should include but not be limited to a detailed timeline (with dates) of any contact between these individuals. Please provide this information between the dates of 1 September 2024 and 8 January 2025 inclusive.

3. Any correspondence (including emails, letters, phone calls, handwritten notes, WhatsApp messages or any other documents) between the office of the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture and the Office of Frances Guy, Chief executive of SIDA. Information should include but not be limited to a detailed timeline (with dates) of any contact between these individuals. Please provide this information between the dates of 1 September 2024 and 8 January 2025 inclusive.

Response

In relation to your first question, the information you have requested for 2019-2023 is available from:

• International Development 2019-2020: contribution report - gov.scot
• Contribution to international development: report 2021 to 2023 - gov.scot

You will see that during financial years 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24 Scotland's International Development Alliance (SIDA) was in receipt of a mix of (a) core funding each year and (b) project funding for certain specific initiatives during those years, as set out in the above reports.

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 listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

For your convenience, I have provided the numbers below, broken down by year.

2019-2020: £219,614

2020-2021: £233,686

2021-2022: £194,487

2022-2023: £245,847

2023-24: £246,237 (including £25,000 not included in the above reports as payment was made in early 2024, while the report includes spend by calendar year)

For financial year 2024-25, in-year spend has not yet been published and so, the answer to your question is that SIDA is in receipt of a core funding grant of £194,487.

In relation to your second and third questions, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. The reason why we don't have the information are explained below.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because there is no record of any correspondence between the Chief Executive of SIDA and either the First Minister or the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture for the period specified.

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

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.