Scottish Government building occupancy rates, maintenance and running costs: EIR release

Information requested

As of the most recent date available, please provide:

A list of all buildings owned or leased by the Scottish Government (including core directorates and agencies).

For each building, the average occupancy rate for the most recent 12-month period and, identify those operating at below 20% occupancy.

The annual maintenance and running costs (including rent, utilities, and facilities management) for each low-occupancy building.

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested, in the format that you requested.

While our aim is to provide information wherever possible, in this instance Scottish Government does not have some of the information that you have requested. This is because Agencies manage their estate independently of Scottish Government. To obtain their information relevant to this request, you will need to submit EIR requests to each Agency individually. I am therefore invoking Regulation 10 (4) (a) Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004, relating to information not held: -

Regulation 10 (4) (a): -
A Scottish public authority may refuse to make environmental information available to the extent that– it does not hold that information when an applicant’s request is received;

I describe below the information supplied, in relation to core Scottish Government property, in response to your request:-

1) The Scottish Government Core Estate is made up of workplace locations with the remainder being specialist stores or structures in varying locations across Scotland. A list of these buildings is provided in the attached table, as Annex A.

A list of the average occupancy level held over the most recent 12 month period for Scottish Government buildings, noting those where the average occupancy level is below 20%, is attached as Annex B.

Please note these figures are based on average recorded attendance on Tuesdays each week throughout 2024, the most recent 12 month period for which we have data available in the format requested, and are only for those buildings for which Scottish Government have data

The figures are for Scottish Government staff only, and do not include any staff from other public sector agencies who may multi-occupy any of these buildings.

Some public bodies wholly operate buildings which are for various reasons, leased or owned in the name of Scottish Ministers. We do not hold running cost or occupancy information for those types of buildings.

The annual maintenance and running costs (including rent, utilities, and facilities management) of Scottish Government buildings with below 20% occupancy is attached as Annex C.

Please note this list relates to Scottish Government run properties only, as we do not hold information relating to Agencies, as described in section 2 above.

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.

EIR 202500488547 - Information released - Annex A, B and C

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