Payment Data - FOI Response Register

I am requesting information on all payments to external suppliers for purchases of goods and services between 2022-01-01 and 2022-12-31.

What is requested is a list of these payments, ideally in Microsoft Excel format, which contains as much of the following information for each payment as possible.

1. Supplier name

With regards to the supplier name, in accordance with FOISA s 16(1), NHS Shetland confirms that it holds the information requested but that it is exempt from disclosure under FOISA s 33(1)(b) as the disclosure would, or would be likely to, result in substantial prejudice to the commercial interests of NHS Shetland’s external suppliers.

Please see the Note below.

2. Amount paid, excluding VAT

Please see attached spreadsheet

3. Payment date (or some other relevant transaction date, for example billing or booking date)

Please see attached spreadsheet

4. A unique invoice-id or a transaction-id number for each payment.

Please see attached spreadsheet

5. Some description of the nature of the expense (for example cost centre or booking account name)

Please see attached spreadsheet

Note on supplier name exemption:

The exemption applies because revealing the names of NHS Shetland’s external suppliers on a per payment basis in conjunction with a description of the nature of the expense would disclose pricing information of specific NHS Shetland contracts. This would be likely to result in substantial prejudice to NHS Shetland’s external suppliers as other customers of said suppliers could use the NHS Shetland pricing information in renegotiation/renewal of their contracts with said provider to negotiate terms that are less favourable to said suppliers commercial interests.

Whilst acknowledging the general public interest in the disclosure of information by public authorities, on balance the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs that of disclosure. This is due to the public interest in public bodies being able to negotiate contracts with more favourable pricing structures than that of the suppliers other customers. Also, in considering the passage of time, this relates to recent information where commercial sensitivity is higher.

Additionally, the public interest in ensuring competitive tending process is against disclosure as firms would be discouraged from bidding for future tenders if pricing information could be revealed whilst it is still commercially sensitive.

Furthermore, the public interest in ensuring oversight of expenditure of public funds is still served by the information released, as information on NHS Shetland expenditure on various categories of goods and services is being released.