Cost to set up the Landlord Register: FOI release

Information requested

The total cost that was involved in setting up the Landlord Register.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the specific information you have requested because the information you are looking for was routinely destroyed, in accordance with our standard records management practice, before the date of your request.

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

However, we have located documents that appear to indicate that a total of £2,312,555.37 was spent on the development of the Landlord Registration IT system in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007. This figure includes the cost of the IT system and other associated costs, such as hosting charges and card payment services provisions.

In addition, some further useful information is available from the Executive Note which accompanies the Private Landlord Registration (Modification) (Scotland) Order 2009. Page 7 of this Note outlines the grant funding made available to Local Authorities between February 2006 and March 2008 to support the start-up costs associated with the delivery of the scheme. The Note can be found at the following website: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2009/33/executive-note/contents.

Additionally, the Scottish Landlord Register has developed gradually over time and goes through an iterative process of improvement. As such, the cost of “setting up” the Landlord Register is unlikely to simply be considered to be just the initial outlay and the costs to upgrade the system should be taken into consideration as well.

All changes have been made within the annual budget and income for the Landlord Register. The annual budget has been approximately £300,000 per year since the financial year of 2021/2022. The contributions from the income from the calendar years of 2022, 2023, and 2024 have been approximately £507,408 in total.

Data for the preceding years is unavailable however the total combined operating costs for the Landlord Register, which include development costs as well as other costs such as hosting charges, are available.

Information on the operating costs between the financial years of 2005/2006 to 2019/2020 have been published as part of a separate Freedom of Information request and the response has been published here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202100238560/

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

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.