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Decision 202/2026

Decision 202/2026:  Spending in schools – facilities management/janitorial services


Authority: Highland Council
Case Ref: 202501835
 

Summary

The Applicant asked the Authority for data on cleaning and facilities management/janitorial services spending for named secondary schools over a specified period.  The Authority provided some information to the Applicant.  The Commissioner investigated and found that the Authority had failed to provide adequate submissions to justify its position that it had identified all of the information it held falling within the scope of the request.  He required the Authority to issue a revised review outcome.

Relevant statutory provisions

Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) sections 1(1), (2), (4) and (6) (General entitlement); 15 (Duty to provide advice and assistance); 47(1) and (2) (Application for decision by Commissioner).

Background

  1. On 4 June 2025, the Applicant made a request for information to the Authority.  He referred to data in the public domain regarding spending in schools and asked for detailed costs for cleaning and facilities management/janitorial services for a list of 28 named secondary schools between 2015/16 and 2024/25. 
  2. The Authority did not respond to the information request.
  3. On 8 July 2025, the Applicant wrote to the Authority requiring a review in respect of its failure to respond. 
  4. The Applicant did not receive a response to his requirement for review within the timescales laid down by section 21(1) of FOISA. 
  5. However, following the Applicant applying to the Commissioner for a decision, the Authority responded to the Applicant’s requirement for review on 8 September 2025 in the following terms:
  • it disclosed some information to the Applicant
  • it issued the Applicant with a notice, in terms of section 17(1) of FOISA, for information between 2015/16 and 2018/19 as this information had been deleted in line with its retention schedule
  • it informed the Applicant that for its PPP schools (PPP1 and PPP2 – five in total), it paid a monthly Unitary Charge fee which included other services.  It therefore issued him with a notice, in terms of section 17(1) of FOISA, in relation to a breakdown of costs for these schools as that information was not recorded.
  1. On 9 October 2025, the Applicant wrote to the Commissioner, applying for a decision in terms of section 47(1) of FOISA.  He stated that he was dissatisfied with the outcome of the Authority’s review because he considered that it held more detailed information than it had located and disclosed to him. 

Investigation

  1. The Commissioner determined that the application complied with section 47(2) of FOISA and that he had the power to carry out an investigation. 
  2. On 13 November 2025, the Authority was notified in writing that the Applicant had made a valid application.  The case was subsequently allocated to an investigating officer. 
  3. Section 49(3)(a) of FOISA requires the Commissioner to give public authorities an opportunity to provide comments on an application.  The Authority was invited to comment on this application and to answer specific questions related to how it had established what information it held falling within the scope of the Applicant’s request.   
  4. The Applicant did not challenge the Authority’s position that it did not hold the information in respect of which it had issued him with a notice to that effect under section 17(1) of FOISA.  The Commissioner will therefore not consider that information further in his decision notice.

Commissioner’s analysis and findings

  1. The Commissioner has considered all of the submissions made to him by the Applicant and the Authority. 

Section 1(1) of FOISA – General entitlement

  1. Section 1(1) of FOISA provides that a person who requests information from a Scottish public authority which holds it is entitled to be given that information by the authority, subject to qualifications which are not applicable in this case.
  2. The information to be given is that held by the authority at the time the request is received, as defined by section 1(4) of FOISA.  This is not necessarily to be equated with information an applicant believes the authority should hold, although an applicant’s reasons may be relevant to the investigation of what is actually held.  If no such information is held by the authority, section 17(1) of FOISA requires it to give the applicant notice in writing to that effect.
  3. The standard of proof to determine whether a Scottish public authority holds the information is the civil standard of the balance of probabilities.
  4. The Authority provided the Applicant with a spreadsheet showing, for each of the financial years from 2019/20 to 2024/25, one total summary figure of costs for FM Services (Cleaning and Janitorial) for 23 individual schools.   In other words, these costs were not broken down in any way. 

The Applicant's submissions

  1. The Applicant explained that he considered the Authority’s response to be incomplete and that it held more information than had been disclosed to him.  He commented that previous disclosures from the Authority provided much more detail and that it should be “quick and easy” for it to export and publish records from its finance system in response to his request as it had done before. 
  2. The Applicant submitted that, at the very minimum, he wanted to find out how much was spent by the Authority on cleaning in each school and how this has changed over time.  He considered that the Authority must be aware of how many people work at each school and for how many hours – a cost he believed would account for approximately 90% of the total costs. 

The Authority’s submissions 

  1. In its initial submissions, the Authority provided a further spreadsheet of information to the Commissioner comprising the actual staff numbers for each school, the total hours per week and the full time equivalent for 2026/27.  It said that it hoped that this breakdown, along with the costs, would provide the detail that the Applicant was looking for.
  2. The Authority noted that there were a number of combined campuses which housed 3 to 18-year-olds, which it said made it impossible to accurately detail the proportion of staff hours that were dedicated to the secondary schools within these campuses.
  3. The Authority also submitted that staff were described as “Facilities Management”, which included cleaning and janitorial services.  It explained that cleaning had been a centralised service for a long time, while the centralised janitorial service was phased in for secondary schools from 2015 to replace the previous model where janitorial staff were line managed directly by Head Teachers.   
  4. The Authority stated that no recharges were processed for cleaning/facilities management materials for secondary schools.  It said that this confirmed that the centralised budget was not broken down by location at any point. 
  5. The Authority explained that it had considered a spreadsheet previously disclosed to the Applicant in response to an earlier request, which detailed all of the spend incurred by other schools.  It stated that it was “possible to identify some limited spend on cleaning materials” but noted that these materials were “purchased by the school direct under devolved school management”. 
  6. In terms of the searches undertaken to identify relevant information, the Authority explained that the officer who had provided the cost data in the review outcome had since retired.  However, it noted that information on the Authority’s budgets and spend was stored on its Finance system.  It is the central system for all costs, and a payment can only be made via the finance system for the whole Authority.  As such, an officer would run and review reports for the budget codes that they were responsible for to produce the relevant information.  It therefore did not consider any further searches necessary.
  7. In its second set of submissions, the Authority explained that the further table of information it provided to the Commissioner was taken from live operational data and represented a snapshot in time when it was provided.  It noted that the system from which this information was obtained did not retain historic versions of this data. 
  8. The Authority confirmed that it did not hold equivalent data for the earlier years specified in the Applicant’s request.  It explained that further searches had been conducted, but these had not identified any further relevant information. 
  9. While it acknowledged that its central Finance team could potentially extract historical data for staffing expenditure against the relevant budget codes, the Authority argued that this would not be an accurate representation of staff allocated to individual establishments as a number of employees worked in multiple locations.  This meant that expenditure recorded against a particular budget code would not necessarily reflect the staffing resource actually deployed within that school.
  10. The Authority explained that it understood that the Applicant was seeking to gain a fuller understanding of how the service is delivered.  However, due to the operational complexities of the Cleaning and Facilities Management Service, it argued that it was not possible to provide the information requested in the manner sought.  It explained that there was no single or consistent formula used to determine the allocation of resources across its diverse education estate. 
  11. The Authority also stated that its Strategic Lead was willing to discuss matters directly with the Applicant to provide further context regarding the operation of the service and how staffing resources are allocated.

The Commissioner's view 

  1. The Commissioner has carefully considered all of the submissions from both the Applicant and Authority. 
  2. Although the Authority expressed a willingness to provide it, and was invited by the Commissioner to do so, the further spreadsheet of information provided to the Commissioner does not appear to have been shared with the Applicant. 
  3. While this information is outwith the period of the request and, in any event, does not appear to address the specific terms of the request, the Commissioner considers that disclosure of this information may nevertheless assist the Applicant.  He would encourage the Authority to provide this information to the Applicant now if it still considers it appropriate to do so. 
  4. While the Applicant clearly believes that the Authority should hold further and more detailed information, the Commissioner’s role is to determine what recorded information was held by the Authority at the time it received the request.  He has no locus, in this context, to determine what information an authority ought to record, or how: he is concerned with what information the authority actually holds.
  5. In determining whether a Scottish public authority holds the information requested in any given case, the Commissioner must be satisfied that the authority has carried out adequate, proportionate searches in the circumstances, considering the terms of the request and all other relevant circumstances.
  6. The Commissioner will consider the scope, quality, thoroughness and results of those searches, applying the civil standard of proof (the balance of probabilities).  Where appropriate, he will also consider any reasons offered by the public authority to explain why it does not, or could not reasonably be expected to, hold the information.
  7. In all cases, it falls to the public authority to persuade the Commissioner, with reference to adequate, relevant descriptions and evidence, that it holds no more information than it has identified and located in response to the request.  In this case, notwithstanding the opportunity given to provide comments, the Commissioner is not satisfied that the Authority has achieved this.
  8. In its initial submissions, the Authority indicated that it was “possible to identify some limited spend on cleaning materials”.  The Commissioner notes that a spreadsheet provided by the Authority in response to a previous request from the Applicant contains cleaning-related expenditure recorded against a specified expenditure code.  In his view, these factors suggest that the Authority holds some further information falling within the scope of the request, regardless of whether these costs were met from a centralised budget or from a school’s devolved budget. 
  9. The Commissioner accepts that this does not establish that the Authority holds the complete information requested by the Applicant for every school or year. However, the Authority has not explained whether it searched for information relevant to the request using relevant expenditure codes.  Instead, the Authority described generally how reports could be generated from its Finance system without providing evidence of the searches actually carried out, including the use of relevant expenditure codes.
  10. The Commissioner acknowledges that the Authority may view the request as seeking a full dataset (i.e. a breakdown of all cleaning costs).  In the circumstances, the Commissioner considers it reasonable to interpret the request as seeking detailed information on whatever relevant cleaning costs are held – even if they do not provide the full picture. 
  11. To the extent that the Authority considers that disclosure of such incomplete information would be misleading and cause confusion, it can choose to provide a commentary with such information, which places it in context or explains its limitations as it sees fit.
  12. In all the circumstances, therefore, the Commissioner cannot, based on the submissions he has received, uphold the Authority’s claim that it does not hold any further information beyond that already disclosed to the Applicant in response to his request.  He is not satisfied that the Authority has fully evaluated the range of means by which the information requested could be identified and located.
  13. The Commissioner therefore requires the Authority to carry out fresh, adequate and proportionate searches, including making use of any relevant expenditure codes, for information relevant to the request and issue the Applicant with a revised review outcome (in terms of section 21 of FOISA).

Section 15 – Duty to provide advice and assistance 

  1. Section 15(1) of FOISA requires a Scottish public authority, so far as it is reasonable to expect it to do so, to provide advice and assistance to a person who proposes to make, or has made, a request for information to it. 
  2. Section 15(2) states that a Scottish public authority shall be taken to have complied with this duty where (in relation to the provision of advice and assistance in a particular case) it conforms with the guidance in the Scottish Ministers' Code of Practice on the discharge of functions by Scottish public authorities under FOISA and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the Section 60 Code).
  3. The Section 60 Code provides that public authorities have a duty to provide advice and assistance at all stages of a request, including after a response has been issued.
  4. In this case, there appears to be a mismatch in expectations between the information the Applicant believes the Authority holds (or should hold) and the information the Authority actually holds.   
  5. As noted above, the Authority’s Strategic Lead expressed a willingness to discuss matters directly with the Applicant to provide further context regarding the operation of the service and how staffing resources are allocated.
  6. In the circumstances, the Commissioner therefore requires the Authority to provide advice and assistance to the Applicant, in terms of section 15 of FOISA, with a view to ensuring that the Applicant and the Authority have reached a clear, and mutually shared, understanding of the scope of the request.  If appropriate, the Authority should provide the Applicant with clear and practical advice on how he might make a new request to allow him to obtain information relevant to his interest.

Decision 

The Commissioner finds that the Authority failed to comply with Part 1 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) in responding to the information request made by the Applicant. 

Specifically, the Commissioner finds that the Authority failed to comply with Part 1 of FOISA by failing to satisfy him that it has identified all relevant information falling within the scope of the request.  

The Commissioner therefore requires the Authority to:

  • reconsider the relevant parts of the Applicant’s request, carry out fresh, adequate and proportionate searches (including making use of any relevant expenditure codes), reach a decision based on these searches, and provide the Applicant with a revised review outcome (in terms of section 21 of FOISA); and
  • provide the Applicant with advice and assistance, in terms of section 15 of FOISA, with a view to ensuring that the Applicant and the Authority have reached a clear, and mutually shared, understanding of the scope of the request. If appropriate, the Authority should provide the Applicant with clear and practical advice on how he might make a new request to allow him to obtain information relevant to his interest.

The Authority must carry out these steps and notify the Applicant of the outcome of its review by 21 September 2026.

Appeal

Should either the Applicant or the Authority wish to appeal against this decision, they have the right to appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law only.  Any such appeal must be made within 42 days after the date of intimation of this decision.

Enforcement 

If the Authority fails to comply with this decision, the Commissioner has the right to certify to the Court of Session that the Authority has failed to comply.  The Court has the right to inquire into the matter and may deal with the Authority as if it had committed a contempt of court.

 

 

Cal Richardson 

Deputy Head of Enforcement 

 

5 August 2026

 

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