Breakdown of expenditure for Remembering Together Covid-19 Community Memorials programme: FOI release

Information requested

Out of the £4.4 Covid Remembering Funding, could you supply a breakdown of where this money went, i.e how much was spent and on what?

Response

You requested a breakdown of expenditure for the Covid-19 Community Memorials 'Remembering Together' programme. This has been provided under FOISA.

I have been asked to respond to your query requesting a breakdown of expenditure for the £4.43 million Remembering Together Covid-19 Community Memorials programme. The programme ran from March 2021 until November 2024 and was managed by Greenspace Scotland with oversight from the Scottish Government.

Phase One Costs - £640,000

Through the first phase of the programme, artists/creative practitioners submitted expressions of interest demonstrating to a panel how they would approach a co-creation process for memorials with their local community, working closely with people bereaved or otherwise affected by the pandemic. The panel, including a delivery partner, members of a local steering group and Greenspace Scotland assessed the expressions of interest and conducted interviews where artists were asked to present more detailed project plans. Delivery partners included community and cultural organisations, colleges and universities, local authorities, Trusts, and Third Sector Interfaces.

£640,000 was provided for artists commissions and access/delivery costs, split into 32 grants of £20,000 per local authority area (£15,000 for artists commission and £5,000 for access and delivery costs). Access costs related to what a community may need in terms of accessing the co-creation, for example British Sign Language or other language interpretation, creche facilities, providing materials in alternative formats, paying for travel for groups, and providing training or enablers to support participation.

Phase Two Costs - £3,200,000

For Phase 2, artists were asked to take forward the most suitable approach to local commemoration working in close partnership with their communities. An allocation of £100,000 was provided per local authority area to include all fees and community co-creation activity. I enclose the full breakdown of grant instalments made to partner organisations. The delivery of the grants were managed by local authorities and across the whole programme a small underspend of £122 was reported to Greenspace Scotland and The Scottish Government and agreed that this could be reprofiled to support the PR costs for the launches of the memorials completing after November 2024.

The completed memorials are diverse and reflect the needs and wishes of each individual community including books, music compositions, exhibitions, theatre, a tartan, labyrinths, tree and garden plantations, sculptures and more. I enclose a full list of completed memorials by local authority.

Greenspace Scotland received Programme Management funding across both Phases of the programme covering all staffing, recruitment, management, associates, learning programme, online and in person events, website, access provisions, Advisory Group, subscriptions, equipment, IT, evaluation, overheads and all other expenses necessary for the programme's delivery.

Programme Management Costs: Greenspace Scotland - £590,000

• Phase 1 - £370,000
• Phase 2 - £220,000

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 202500457192 - Information Released - Annex

File type

PDF

File size

220.7 kB