FOI - Spend Data
Updated 6 February 2026
Applies to England and Wales
© Crown copyright 2026
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pubs-code-adjudicator-foi-responses-2025/foi-spend-data
FOI/472468 Thank you for your email, received on 08 May 2025, in which you requested information from the office of the Pubs Code Adjudicator (PCA) under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA 2000) entitles you to:
- know whether the information you have requested is held by the PCA; and
be provided with that information, subject to any exemptions in FOIA 2000 which may apply.
Your email of 8 May 2025 requested the following information:
All of your entity’s expenditure over £25,000 for January 2020 to April 2025.
Please provide the data in a machine-readable format (preferably CSV). As a minimum, please make sure to include the date, value, and recipient of each transaction. Please also provide details on the procurement category of each transaction if you have it.
On the 14 May 2025, the PCA emailed a request for clarification:
Your request for “all of your entity’s expenditure over £25,000 for January 2020 to April 2025” could mean “all single transactions over £25,000” or it could equally mean “all expenditure over a “£25,000 lower limit”. I would be grateful if you would clarify your request.
On 14 May 2025 you replied with:
“All single transactions over £25,000, please”.
I can confirm that the office of the PCA does hold information relevant to your request.
However, some of the information you have requested is exempt from disclosure under section 40(2) of FOIA 2000 on the basis that it is personal information of someone other than the requester and disclosing it would breach the principles of the UK General Data Protection Regulation.
In respect of the information within the scope of your request that is not exempt from disclosure, I have listed the number of single expenditure transactions over £25,000 by financial year in the table below and provided a detailed breakdown by date, value and recipient of each transaction is provided in the attached Excel spreadsheet.
| Financial year | Number of expenditure transactions over £25k |
|---|---|
| 01/04/2020 to 31/03/2021 | 18 |
| 01/04/2021 to 31 /03/2022 | 2 |
| 01/04/2022 to 31/03/2023 | 4 |
| 01/04/2023 to 31/03/2024 | 19 |
| 01/04/2024 to 31/03/2025 | 12 |
I have highlighted some rows in yellow on the attached Excel spreadsheet. The following information explains the background to these payments.
The statutory office of the PCA was created by section 41 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (SBEEA 2015), which places statutory, financial and reporting obligations on the holder of the office.
The PCA is funded by a levy on the businesses it regulates. The levy may only be imposed with the consent of the Secretary of State.
Section 63(1) and (2) of the SBEEA 2015 provides:
Levy funding
(1)The Adjudicator may require pub-owning businesses to pay in each financial year a levy towards the Adjudicator’s expenses.
(2)Before imposing a levy, the Adjudicator must obtain the Secretary of State’s consent.
Furthermore, section 63(9) and (10) of the SBEEA 2015 provides:
(9) If the Adjudicator has a surplus, the Adjudicator may repay some or all of it to pub-owning businesses.
(10)In subsection (9) “surplus” means money held by the Adjudicator at the end of a financial year less liabilities shown in the Adjudicator’s statement of accounts for that financial year.
The payments highlighted in yellow on the attached Excel spreadsheet represents the return of the deferred income or “surplus” to pub companies, which the PCA is obligated to return on an annual basis.
If you do not believe that the office of the PCA has provided an appropriate response to your request, as set out above, you are entitled to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original request and should be made in writing, quoting the above reference, to office@pubscodeadjudicator.gov.uk or the PCA registered address:
4th Floor
23, Stephenson Street,
Birmingham
B2 4BJ
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.