Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme statistics: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request 202500447911

Would you provide me with the following information on each of the agreed Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme suppliers over the last 12 months.

• Number of applications made under the scheme
• Number of installations carried out
• Number of installations carried out where a validation request email was issued to the beneficiary, who confirmed they were getting speeds of above 30 Mbps
• Number of installations carried out where a validation request email was issued to the beneficiary, who confirmed they were not getting speeds of above 30 Mbps
• Number of recipient of the voucher who have reported dissatisfaction with the quality of service they have received from the supplier at any point during the period they were a beneficiary under the scheme to administrators of the SBVS.
• Number of random audits carried out
• Number of audits carried out where the independent third party auditor have raised concerns over equipment installation or speeds provided to administrators of SBVS.

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for information regarding the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme suppliers in the last 12 months.

I have concluded that a different decision should be substituted.

Please would you provide me with the following information on each of the agreed Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme suppliers over the last 12 months.

1. Number of applications made under the scheme
2. Number of installations carried out
3. Number of installations carried out where a validation request email was issued to the beneficiary, who confirmed they were getting speeds of above 30 Mbps
4. Number of installations carried out where a validation request email was issued to the beneficiary, who confirmed they were not getting speeds of above 30 Mbps
5. Number of recipient of the voucher who have reported dissatisfaction with the quality of service they have received from the supplier at any point during the period they were a beneficiary under the scheme to administrators of the SBVS.
6. Number of random audits carried out
7. Number of audits carried out where the independent third party auditor have raised concerns over equipment installation or speeds provided to administrators of SBVS.

Our response to your request:

Our response to questions 1-3, 6 and 7 is included in the attached spreadsheet Annex A gives, for each of these questions, the requested information broken down by supplier. I have concluded that this breakdown should have been included in our initial response to your request. In all of the cases referred to in response to question 7 (where the speed of 30 megabits per second was not met on the day) these were followed up with the supplier and subsequently resolved.

4. Number of installations carried out where a validation request email was issued to the beneficiary, who confirmed they were not getting speeds of above 30 Mbps: - 0

5. Number of recipients of the voucher who have reported dissatisfaction with the quality of service they have received from the supplier at any point during the period they were a beneficiary under the scheme to administrators of the SBVS:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information requested in question 5.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you asked for because the commercial contract is between the beneficiary and the supplier. If there are any issues with their service, the beneficiary would raise this directly with their Internet Service Provider (ISP). The Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme terms and conditions require that all registered suppliers are a member of an Ofcom recognised Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service. This is a formal notice under 17(1) of FOISA confirming that the Scottish Government does not hold the information requested in question 5.

In your request for review you also highlighted the delay in responding to your request for information to the Scottish Government. I apologise for the delay in responding to your initial request. The reason for the delay is that your initial request of 20 December 2024 was not identified as a request under FOISA. Upon receiving your follow up correspondence on 13 January 2025 it became clear that the correspondence should have been considered a request under FOISA and it was accordingly registered on our case handling system as such. However at this point the request was erroneously calculated with a deadline 20 working days after that date and not from 20 December 2024 when the request was first received by the Scottish Government.

I have taken steps to remind colleagues in our teams that handle correspondence that a request for information under FOISA is not required to reference FOISA legislation for it to be treated as such and the importance of calculating the statutory deadline for response based upon the initial piece of correspondence.

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 202500451630 - Information released - Annex A

File type

Excel document

File size

15.8 kB