FOI Request - Review of 101003819090 Consultancy Engagements and Deliverables
Request 101003847084
Review of 101003819090 Consultancy Engagements and Deliverable
I am writing to request an internal review of the handling of my Freedom of Information request, originally submitted on 4 July 2025, relating to External Consultancy Engagements and Deliverables which you acknowledged on 10 July 2025 under reference 101003819090.
As of today, more than 20 working days have passed since submission, and no response has been received. This constitutes a breach of your statutory duty under Section 10(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), which requires that requests be answered promptly and in any event within 20 working days.
I request that this internal review consider:
1. The reason for the failure to respond within the statutory timeframe;
2. An immediate commitment to provide a full response without further delay;
3. An assurance that future delays will be prevented, particularly given the straightforward nature of the original request.
This review is submitted in accordance with Section 20 of FOISA, and I look forward to receiving your internal review outcome within the statutory 20 working days.
Response 26-09-2025
Following your request for a review (our ref: 101003847084) of your Freedom of Information (FOI) Request – Consultancy Engagements and Deliverables (our ref: 101003819090), a review meeting was held on 18th September 2025. In attendance were the Information Governance Manager and Data Protection Officer; Acting Service Manager, Planning and Building Standards (Job Share); Senior Project Manager; Service Manager, Growth Deal; Principal Environmental Health Officer; Assistant Manager – FMS & Banking; Service Manager, Strategic Planning & Development; Solicitor; and Information Co-ordinator.
Your FOI Request (101003819090) from 4th July 2025 was discussed.
Firstly, we would like to apologise for the lack of response. Your request came in at a time of high staff absence due to the school summer holidays and this led to a response not being sent out within the statutory timeframe.
Please find the response to your request below:
Your request was for
1. Consultancy Engagements
For each engagement with an external consultant or consultancy firm during this period, please provide:
• Name of the consultant/firm
• Subject or scope of the engagement (e.g. digital transformation, housing strategy, finance review, organisational restructure)
• Cost of the engagement (total paid or contracted)
• Duration (from commission date to delivery date of final product)
• Department or team that commissioned the work
• Summary of final output or deliverable (e.g. report, strategy, assessment)
• Whether any internal review or follow-up was conducted
• Whether any value-for-money or impact assessment was carried out
Following an extensive search, over 100 contracts with a value over £10,0000 that included “consultancy” in their title/description were identified. In addition, the individual departments supplied a list of more than 10 pages with consultant activities.
Many of these contracts will contain commercially sensitive information, as such they are exempt under Section 33 (1)(b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002- commercial sensitivity. To determine which of the contract information is commercially sensitive and what could be given would require assessing each contract individually; this also applies to identifying deliverables and other details you are requesting, such as name, scope, cost, duration, review, assessments, as well as the team that commissioned the work. At over 100 instances of consultants used, this task is estimated to take more than 40 hours of staff time and would cost the Council in excess of £600. In accordance with Section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) - excessive cost, we are therefore unable to comply with this request.
Nonetheless, we confirm that information on some of the projects are in the public domain. Please find links to Air Quality Reports here: http://www.moray.gov.uk/moray_standard/page_1790.html and Community Safety Strategy here: http://www.moray.gov.uk/downloads/file88031.pdf
Please note that the Council’s contract register, which is updated on a monthly basis, may provide some details, however, it does not highlight if a contract was for a consultancy engagement. Please find a link here: http://www.moray.gov.uk/moray_standard/page_101331.html
2. Deliverables
You requested a copy of each final report, strategy document, or other final deliverable resulting from these consultancy engagements.
Other than information that is in the public domain, this information is likely to be exempt under Section 33 (1)(b) of FOISA - commercial sensitivity, or the process to identify the non-confidential information would take in excess of 40 hours and the information would therefore be exempt under Section 12 of FOISA - excessive cost. In cases of Commercial Sensitivity, disclosure would be likely to prejudice substantially the commercial interests of any person and it is not considered to be in the public interest to release this information, as there could be negative future complications that would impact the public purse and future developments.
In your request for a review you ask for an assurance that future delays will be prevented. Please note that we are a small council, and many departments or teams consist of only one or two officers, so any leave, planned or otherwise, can potentially lead to delays in our responses to requests for information. Please be assured that we are trying our best in providing responses within the statutory deadline and that this breach is a rare exception, for which we apologise.