Scottish Forestry expenditure queries: 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

Response to your question 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.’

	Finance	Communications	HR	Digital & Data
21-22	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
22-23	£ 841,607	£ 533,934	£ 609,004	£ 1,713,009
23-24	£ 952,739	£ 448,476	£ 660,529	£ 1,963,298
24-25	£ 795,147	£ 571,327	£ 858,088	£ 1,835,071
25-26	£ 851,538	£ 386,354	£ 559,809	£ 1,191,778

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, I can confirm that with regard to Q1, we do not have the information for 2021-22 as our finance system at the time was not set up to allow the information to be pulled out. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA informing you that Scottish Forestry does not hold the information you requested in point one.

Under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), public authorities are required to disclose recorded information they hold at the time of a request, not to create new information to answer questions.

Please refer to Annex A below for the reasons why this exemption applies.

Response to your questions 2 to 6 and 8:

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.’
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.’

	21-22	22-23	23-24	24-25	25-26
Q2	0	0	0	0	0
Q3	180.00	206.00	0	0	0
Q4	0	0	0	0	0
Q5	43,380.25	301,010.03	315,109.68	120,256.16	194,087.24
Q6	0	0	0	0	6,184.80
Q8	8,283.42	0	0	0	341.11

Response to your question 7: ‘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.’

Scottish Forestry does not have any advertising budget for social media, so the answer is £0. The total cost of the existing social media accounts that Scottish Forestry is zero, since Instagram, LinkedIn, and X (previously Twitter) are free accounts.

There is no advertising at all, so the question is irrelevant to Scottish Forestry on this occasion.

ANNEX A

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

Section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) — (Notice that information is not held)

An exemption under section 17(1) of FOISA applies to some of the requested information. The public authority, in this case Scottish Forestry, is not required to provide information it does not hold at the time of the request.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA confirming that Scottish Forestry does not have all the information you requested, as this falls outside its authority and remit as a forestry regulator.

This is a procedural section that mandates the public authority to issue a notice of refusal, rather than withholding information based on an exemption; therefore, it is not subject to a public interest test.

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.