FOI_26-233 Planned IT projects

Date of response: 20 October 2026

We have now considered your request of 16 September 2026 for the following information:

Question 1. A list of ICT, digital, network, telephony or business-systems projects and programmes that are planned, approved or in progress for the financial years 2026/27 and 2027/28. For each, please give the project name, a one-line description, the approved or estimated budget, the planned start and end dates and the job title of the officer responsible for delivering it.

Question 2. Where a project in that list will be delivered with the help of an external supplier or contractor, the name of that supplier if one has already been appointed.

Our response:

Please see accompanying document, our ref: FOI_26-233 Appendix A.

On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemptions to part of your request.

Exemption explanation

On this occasion it is not possible to provide all of the requested information. In line with your rights under section 1(1)(a) of the Act to be informed whether information is held, we confirm that the University does not hold any recorded information for the budgets or estimated budgets for some of the contracts – primarily as no estimated or confirmed budget allocations have been confirmed at the time of your request.

The s.43(2) exemption applies to the approved or estimated budget for Salesforce. It is our belief, supported by direct evidence provided by Salesforce that release of this information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Salesforce.

The provision of cloud customer management systems is undoubtedly a commercial activity. The sale of IT products, software, maintenance and customer support is a commercial activity.

This commercial activity is conducted in a competitive environment. The number of commercial organisations marketing and selling products of a similar nature is growing.

It is our position that the approved or estimated budget allocated to Salesforce is commercially sensitive. Disclosure of this information would be likely to reveal information about the pricing model of Salesforce and in this competitive environment, such information is important to distinguishing competitors in this market and of great value to such competitors.

We would also maintain that there is likely to be damage to the commercial interests of Salesforce. Under FOI, release to one requester can be considered as release to the world. It is our position that release of this information would, in effect, provide competitors of Salesforce with information that would be prejudicial to the commercial interests of Salesforce.

Use of such information by competitors would put Salesforce at a distinct disadvantage in any tendering process and or competing for trade in this field. We have consulted with Salesforce and have been informed by them that they feel that the release of the exempted information would detrimentally impact their competitiveness in this market.

Given the competitive nature of the market in question, the commercial sensitivity of the information, we are confident that there is a strong possibility that this information would be used, and that the prejudice would occur.

The application of this exemption requires an examination of the public interest in disclosure as opposed to that in non-disclosure.

The factors in favour of disclosure would include:

• Increasing public understanding of the marketing and tendering process

• Enhancing the transparency and openness of the procurement and IT management process

• Increasing public confidence in the integrity and probity of the procurement and IT management process

• There is significant public interest in spend on such services

Factors in favour of withholding the information are largely laid out in the explanation for the use of the exemption above but would include:

• Ensuring there is fair competition for public sector contracts

• Protecting the ability of public authorities to compete on a level playing field

• Preventing a distortion of the procurement process that would have the potential effect of raising costs to the public sector and/or reducing the quality of services procured

After consideration of the above factors, we believe, on balance, that the public interest lies in maintaining in the exemption.