Disclosure Scotland expenditure: FOI release

Information requested

1. The total amount spent on corporate functions by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date. Please also break this down by the type of function – for example, human resources.

2. The total amount of money spent fixing/replacing broken equipment in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

3. The total financial loss to your organisation on written off inventory and IT equipment in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024 25 and 2025-26 to date.

4. The total amount of money spent on consultants by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

5. The total amount of money spent on agency staff by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025 26 to date.

6. The total amount of money spent on recruitment agencies by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

7. The total amount of money spent on social media advertising by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date. Please provide the reason for the advertising in each case if possible.

8. The total amount of compensation payments made by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025 26 to date.

Response

I have answered each of your questions below.

Some of the information you have requested is already available in a previously published FOI response which can be accessed at the following link: Disclosure Scotland spend: FOI release - gov.scot.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. For questions 2-8, we have provided data for financial year 2025-26 to date only, which is not already available. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain previous financial years from the published FOI response, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

1. The total amount spent on corporate functions by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date. Please also break this down by the type of function – for example, human resources.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. This is because compiling the information for multiple financial years would require a very substantial amount of review and cross‑checking.

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600, for example by limiting question 1 to one or two financial years. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

2. The total amount of money spent fixing/replacing broken equipment in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

Disclosure Scotland has a “device refresh” process in place that sees most devices being replaced before they fail. We have no recorded data relating to the fixing or replacing of equipment.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Disclosure Scotland does not have the specific information you have requested.

3. The total financial loss to your organisation on written off inventory and IT equipment in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

For the 9 months to 31 December 2025 no assets fall within this category and therefore the spend was nil.

4. The total amount of money spent on consultants by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

For the 9 months to 31 December 2025, no spend was undertaken by consultants.

5. The total amount of money spent on agency staff by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

For the 9 months to 31 December 2025, £7,037k was spend on agency and IT contractors.

6. The total amount of money spent on recruitment agencies by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

For the 9 months to 31 December 2025, no money was spent on recruitment agencies.

7. The total amount of money spent on social media advertising by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date. Please provide the reason for the advertising in each case if possible.

For the 9 months to 31 December 2025, we did not spend any money on social media advertising.

Note, this does not include our duty to inform campaign required by legislation.

8. The total amount of compensation payments made by your organisation in the financial years 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date.

No compensation payments have been incurred to 31 December 2025.

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.