Total annual cost incurred by Food Standards Scotland as a result of activities related to animal welfare enforcement and reporting for 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26

Your request was about the following information:

I am writing on behalf of WPI Economics, an independent economics and policy consultancy. We have been commissioned by the RSPCA to undertake research into the scale of animal abuse and neglect in the UK, and the associated costs to individuals, the economy, and wider society. 

Under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, we would be grateful if you could provide any of the following information: 

The total annual cost incurred by the FSS as a result of activities related to animal welfare enforcement and reporting (including staff costs and other costs incurred as a result of slaughterhouse inspections, data management, reporting, liaising with other organisations such as APHA and Local Authorities, and any other relevant activities), broken down by type of activity where possible, for the following financial years: 2023/24 (01/04/2023 – 31/03/2024), 2024/25 (01/04/2024 – 31/03/2025), 2025/26 (01/04/2025 – 31/03/2026). If you are not able to provide the exact figure, please provide a rough estimate. 

If you cannot provide the information requested above in financial years, please provide it in calendar years (2023, 2024, 2025) or however your data is stored. If you do not have this data for all the years requested, please provide the data for the years you have. If the requested years are missing altogether, please provide data for the latest available time period. 

We appreciate that your organisation may not record all of the above information, and we would be grateful for whatever data you are able to provide. 

If you are not able to provide all the information requested within the cost limit, please provide any part of this information you can. If any part of this request cannot be answered because the information is not held in recorded form, please state this clearly. 

If complying with any element of this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit, please provide: 

• The reason why, and 

• Advice on how the request could be refined to fall within the limit.

In the attached table “2026-2027-6 – Welfare Costs Breakdown”, there is a breakdown of the income provided by the Scottish Government to Food Standards Scotland, to ensure animal welfare-related official controls in all abattoirs in Scotland are consistently delivered via the employed Meat Hygiene Inspectors and Official Veterinarians. 

Official controls on animal welfare are conducted by FSS on behalf of Scottish Government as part of a Service Level Agreement, which covers all functions described in the Service & Reports required column. 

We would be happy to discuss any of the information included.