FOI – 2025-000239 Design, Marketing and Communication Services (HTML)

Date received – 30 July 25 | Date responded – 28 August 25

Request

I hope this message finds you well.

I am writing to formally request, under the Freedom of Information Act, the following information relating to your organisation’s design, marketing, and communication services:

A list of all design, marketing, and communication services and contracts your organisation has procured in the past three years.

For each contract, please include:

• The name and description of the service or product purchased
• The supplier or vendor
• The contract start and end dates
• The total contract value (if available)
• Any associated renewal or extension terms

Additionally, if possible, I would be grateful if you could provide the name and contact details (or departmental contact information) for a relevant individual within your design, marketing, and communications department, who may be approached for future correspondence or engagement.

If any part of this request exceeds the cost limit under Section 12 of the Act, please advise if it would be possible to narrow the scope in order to remain within the allowable limit.

Thank you in advance for your time and assistance. I look forward to your response within the

statutory timeframe.

Response

We have now completed the search of our records and can provide you with the following information:

A list of all design, marketing, and communication services and contracts your organisation has procured in the past three years.

For each contract, please include:

• The name and description of the service or product purchased
• The supplier or vendor
• The contract start and end dates
• The total contract value (if available)
• Any associated renewal or extension terms

Under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act, 2002 (FOISA) an organisation does not have to provide that information if it does not hold it. NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) is not able to identify specific design, marketing, and communication services that may be part of other contracts such as print or IT products and services therefore any spend in these areas has not been included in our response.

Please find attached Appendix 1 – Design, Marketing and Communication Contracts. This details specific contracts we have in place for design, marketing, and communication services. It should be noted that some of this spend is also captured within the figures in Appendix 2 and that the values provided in Appendix 1 are for the full period of the contract.

Please find attached Appendix 2 – Design, Marketing and Communication AdHoc Spend. This details the NSS spend on design, marketing, and communication services over the last 3 financial years.

These figures include both contracted and non-contracted adhoc spend. Please note that where there is no value included this means that we are currently unable to verify spend for that financial year.

Additionally, if possible, I would be grateful if you could provide the name and contact details (or departmental contact information) for a relevant individual within your design, marketing, and communications department, who may be approached for future correspondence or engagement.

Please find contact details below:

Kate Henderson, Head of Procurement, NSS National Procurement Team. kate.henderson@nhs.scot

I trust you will find the information of assistance and if you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of how we have dealt with your request, you can make representations to us asking us to review the handling of your request.

If you require any further information, please contact the Associate Director Governance and Board Services (Board Secretary) within 40 working days of the date of this correspondence.

Contact

Address

If after a review you are still unhappy, you also have the right to apply to the Scottish Information Commissioner, who can be contacted at Kinburn Castle, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9DS, or via their application form.

National Services Scotland (NSS) is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. You can view all FOI responses within our FOI Publications repository.