FOI ref: FOI/2022/4346
You asked
Please provide information on the following questions regarding the Shape Tomorrow Survey:
- Is the ONS providing merchandise with the surveys, for example, tote bags?
- If so, can you please list all the items of merchandise being provided, including the number of items and the total expenditure by the ONS on each item?
- Can you also provide information on the estimated cost of postage for these additional items of merchandise?
We said
Thank you for your request.
We provide a single tote bag with every invitation to take part in our Shape Tomorrow Survey. This survey is voluntary but is vital for producing our key labour market statistics and many other outputs. Our research shows that providing a tote bag encourages people to take part, increasing response to the survey and driving up the quality of the data. This then reduces the costs of following up non-responding households and thus represents a cost-efficient design.
We have spent a combined total of £1,509,410.00 on 780,500 tote bags including postage costs since the survey was launched in April 2020 in response to the pandemic. The cost has changed multiple times over this time period but represents an average of under £2 expenditure per household invited to take part.
We have not provided the cost of the tote bags separated from the cost of the postage, as this would likely cause commercial prejudice to our supplier and to our organisation.
Our supplier provides us with tote bags at a discounted price. If we were to disclose this cost under FOI (either by providing the cost per bag or the total cost of tote bags only and the total number distributed) this would open our supplier up to exploitation and put them at a disadvantage when negotiating the price for their services in the future. All future negotiators with the company would have a target/base price, meaning negotiations would no longer occur based on the merit of the two sides. Buyers would instead look to obtain the lower price obtained by us, as they know that the company have provided this before.
The supplier would likely also lose existing custom and/or revenue. This is because current customers would be able to see our published cost, and argue that they also should receive this price, and then take their custom elsewhere when the company do not oblige.
The release of this information would therefore negatively impact our supplier's ability to compete effectively in a commercial environment.
We (the ONS) would also be disadvantaged at tendering processes in future with the supplier another companies, as they would not wish for similar commercial prejudice to occur from entering into an agreement with us. Therefore, not only would we likely lose our existing arrangements with suppliers, but we would also have a reduced pool of contractors with which we could work in the future. Both of these consequences would reduce our chances of receiving services at an advantageous price for us and the taxpayer, causing direct commercial prejudice to our organisation.
The public interest arguments in favour of releasing this information include the desirability for the details surrounding public spending to be as transparent as possible. This is so the public can appropriately scrutinise public authorities' spending of public funds. In particular, this information is in the public interest, as it provides evidence that our organisation are ensuring that the services we are purchasing are at an advantageous price for the public, which in turn provides evidence that public funds are being handled by us conscientiously. However, it is important to note that this requirement has been fulfilled by the rest of the information we have provided in response to this request.
There is a strong public interest in withholding this information, as the release of these costs would likely compromise our ability to negotiate without any disadvantage at future tender exercises. Contractors would either be unwilling to work with us in the future, which would reduce the pool of service-providers that we can choose between, or they would be unwilling to offer us a discounted price for their services. Both of these circumstances would have a direct and negative impact on public funds, as we would then need to purchase contractual services for a higher price than we have achieved previously. Therefore, the release of this information would have a negative impact on the preservation of public funds.
Therefore, on balance, the public interest test falls in favour of withholding the additional requested information. However, we hope you find the information we are able to disclose helpful.