Brokerage for health boards: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for the following information in relation to brokerage for health boards, for 2023-24 and 2024-25:

1. The amount each health board has received in brokerage for each year.

2. Please provide each board’s brokerage cap for 25-26.

3. The cumulative brokerage figure for each health board in 23-24 and 24-25.

4. The amount each health board has repaid in brokerage in 23-24 and 24-25.

5. The latest schedule for each health board’s repayments for 24/25 and subsequent years for which information is held.

Response

Some of the information you have requested is available from individual board audited accounts and financial planning publications, available online on individual boards’ websites. For reasons of ease of access and clarity, please find to follow the amount each health board received in brokerage in 2023-24 as well as cumulative total:

NHS Board	Opening Balance £m	2023-24 Brokerage £m	Closing balance £m
NHS Ayrshire and Arran	40.1	38.4	78.5
NHS Borders	20.0	15.5	35.5
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	9.3	23.0	32.3
NHS Fife	9.7	14.0	23.7
NHS Grampian	-	24.8	24.8
NHS Highland	27.3	29.5	56.8
NHS Orkney	-	5.2	5.2
NHS Tayside		16.1	16.1*

*NHS Tayside’s closing balance excludes historic £9.6m as this was incorrectly classified as brokerage

We do not hold information in relation to 2024-25 brokerage amounts, as these figures are not yet confirmed through individual board annual accounts that are still ongoing through external audit processes. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

This information will be made publicly available once the audit concludes and the accounts are laid in Parliament.

Alan Gray, Director of Health and Social Care Finance, wrote to Chief Executives of NHS Scotland on 04 December 2024 to provide the details of the indicative funding settlement for NHS Boards in the Scottish Government Budget 2025-26. The letter confirmed that brokerage would not be available for 2025-26 and that NHS Boards would be expected to work towards a breakeven trajectory in their three year financial plans.

Following submission of three-year plans, Boards who are not anticipating to break even or deliver a deficit with 1% core funding have been required to submit recovery plans for 2025-26.

There have been no repayments of brokerage over the years noted.

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.