Current status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 8 August 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on how much was spent by (a) the NHS, (b) local authorities and (c) the entire Scottish public sector on Microsoft 365 licences in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Scottish Government does not hold centralised figures for Microsoft 365 license spend across the entire public sector, however, information is held on spend through the Scottish Government Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and spend on all Microsoft products through the Software Value Added Reseller Services (SVARS) framework.
iTECS can confirm that the Scottish Government spent a total of £6,514,529.39 on Microsoft 365 licences in the most recent financial year, through the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. This figure includes all licences held under the SCOTS Connect tenancy, which supports both SG Core and Non-Core customers. It is important to note that this cost includes licences for 55 SCOTS Connect customers on the network, which partially covers some of the wider public sector in Scotland. However, iTECS does not collate or hold centralised figures for Microsoft 365 licence expenditure by the NHS, local authorities, or the Scottish public sector as a whole.
Breakdown of Costs by Licence Type
Tenancy | Description | Cost (£) |
SCOTSConnect | Predominantly M365 E3 licencing for SG Core and Non-Core users | £6,284,281.43 |
SCOTS Connect SCE | Cloud products including SQL and Data Centre | £217,226.88 |
ScotsConnectTravel | M365 E3 and E5 for SCOTS Travel (Cyber) | £8,566.85 |
ScotsConnectTest | Minimal test licences (E1, E3, F3, E5, etc.) | £3,610.38 |
ScotsConnectPreProd | Minimal pre-production licences | £843.85 |
Total | £6,514,529.39 |
As of 2 April 2025, there were 24,178 users across SG Core (52.1%) and Non-Core (47.9%), with the M365 E3 licence cost split as follows:
SVARS Microsoft Spend
The SVARS Framework provides Scottish public sector and third sector bodies with a compliant procurement route to purchase commercial off the shelf (COTS) software and associated services.
Information is held on spend on Microsoft 365 products via the SVARS frameworks, however, it should be noted that the information provided in the following table does not relate to sectoral spend out with our current framework agreements and does not include spend through other procurement routes or maverick spend as this information is not held by Scottish Government.
The SVARS data held on spend per sector for 2024-2025 FY is:
Sector | Spend (£) |
NHS | £36,789,550.80 |
Local Authority | £6,017,028.85 |
Other Public Sector | £6,240,604.80 |
Total | £49,047,184.45 |
Colleagues in the Scottish Government are currently working on a programme which will capture new digital change spend information across Scottish Government core and the Executive Agencies. Future phases of this programme will implement a broader approach which will allow oversight of business-as-usual digital spend, which Microsoft licences would fall within, potentially offering greater oversight across other public sector organisations as well as Scottish Government.