Details of the spend to APS Group by the Directorate for Agriculture and Rural Economy: EIR release

Information requested

Details of the spend to APS Group spent by the Directorate for Agriculture and Rural Economy, as outlined in the Spend Over £500 reporting.

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

The spend you refer to is for the purchase of pads of official carbon copy record sheets for use by inspectors during inspection of potato tubers. The breakdown of the total bill is as follows:

Seed Potato Label Return Forms

A4 pad, 2-part set, both sheets alike, CB white/CF yellow, printed in black one side, padded at head with grey board back. 50 sets per pad. Supply loose writing shields.

Quantity 21

Total = £215.16 plus VAT @ 20% = £43.03

Ware Potato Inspection Report Forms

A4 pads, 2-part set, both sheets alike, CB white/ CF blue, printed in black one side, sequentially crash numbered in red, padded at head with grey board back. 50 sets per pad. Supply loose writing shields. Quantity 31

Total = £262.76 plus VAT @ 20% = £52.55

Seed Potato Inspection Report Forms

A4 pads, 2 part set, both sheets alike, CB60 white/CF57 pink, printed in black one side, sequentially crash numbered in red, padded at head with grey board back. 50 sets per pad. Supply loose writing shields. Quantity 259

Total = £975.60 plus VAT @ 20% = £195.12

Net total £1,453.52
VAT £290.70
Gross Total £1,744.24

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