Subscriptions to paid Artificial Intelligence (AI) services: FOI release

Information requested

1. Whether any Scottish Government departments or agencies (or Scottish Parliament, if sending to them) currently hold or have previously held subscriptions to paid AI services, including but not limited to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus, ChatGPT Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot, or comparable generative AI platforms.

2. If such subscriptions exist or have existed:

• The date of purchase, duration, and cost of each subscription.
• The name of the provider (e.g. OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, Google, etc.).
• Which department, office, or individual made or approved the expenditure.

3. Copies of any internal correspondence, memos, or procurement justifications relating to the use or approval of these services (excluding personal information).

Response

Firstly, I just wanted to share that the Scottish Government is not responsible for responding to Freedom of Information requests on behalf of our Agencies or the Scottish Parliament, so the response shared only covers the core Scottish Government departments.

If you wish to raise a similar question with the Parliament or our Agency counterparts, you can find contact details here –

• Executive agencies - National public bodies: directory - gov.scot
• Requesting information | Scottish Parliament Website

Question 1 and 2

I can confirm that the Scottish Government has made use of subscriptions to AI services since June 2023, and you can see details of the costs and departments in the table below:

Department		Date Start	Date End	Provider	Cost
Digital Directorate
	Subscription 1 - AI Policy	11/07/23	On-Going	Open AI - ChatGPT	£389.60
	Subscription 2 - CivTech	18/12/23	On-Going	Open AI - ChatGPT	£368.25
	Subscription 3 - iTECS	24/06/24	On-Going	Open AI - ChatGPT	£270.91
Directorate for Financial Management
	Finance Training Team	29/06/23	On-Going	Synthesia	£496.80
Directorate for Agriculture and Rural Economy
	Rural Economy Team	27/03/25	On-Going	Open AI - ChatGPT	£56.11
Total Spend					£1,581.67

Question 3

I have attached a copy of the guidance provided to all staff on the use of Generative AI, this is found in Annex A. You will note from this guidance that we have access to CoPilot Chat, but this is delivered as part of our core IT build and is not delivered via a monthly subscription, so does not feature on the list above. 

The purchase of these subscriptions is managed using our internal ePC (Electronic Purchasing Card) held within individual business areas, so procurement teams are not involved in the purchasing or approval of these services. They are considered and approved within local business areas, following our standard ePC for public bodies guidance. Electronic purchasing cards (ePC): guide for public bodies - gov.scot

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 202500472238 - Information released - Annex A

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