Correspondence between the First Minister and Patrick Harvie, Andrew Wilson and Ian Blackford: FOI review

Information requested

In your original request, dated 5 January 2023, you asked for: 

1. any correspondence between the First Minister, either directly, on her behalf, or by her office or assistants, and Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens between 01-June-2021 and 31-August- 2021. This would include all correspondence, ie emails, texts, direct messages, WhatsApp messages, etc. 

2. any correspondence between the First Minister, either directly, on her behalf, or by her office or assistants, and economist Andrew Wilson between 01-June-2022 and 21-October-2022. This would include all correspondence, ie emails, texts, direct messages, WhatsApp messages, etc. 

3. any correspondence between the First Minister, either directly, on her behalf, or by her office or assistants, and Ian Blackford between 01-April-2022 and 31-July-2022. This would include all correspondence, ie emails, texts, direct messages, WhatsApp messages, etc. 

4. the resignation letters from Lady Poole and the four counsel members who resigned from the Covid-19 inquiry in 2022. 

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for FOI202300336762, and I have concluded that a different decision should be substituted. This is in relation to the first part of your request, the correspondence between the First Minister and Patrick Harvie of the Green Party. I have determined that the handler incorrectly concluded that the request would exceed the upper-cost limit of £600, and therefore wrongly applied section 12 of FOISA.

On this basis, I have now conducted a search for this information, and I have not found correspondence directly between the First Minister and Patrick Harvie for the period in question. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

However, within your request for review, I note that you have referenced that you expected documents regarding the Bute House Agreement. By way of context on this, I would direct you to a previous FOI release, published on gov.scot website, which may contain some of the information you are seeking: Correspondence with Scottish Green Party regarding co-operation agreement: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

In relation to the second and third parts of your original request (the direct correspondence between the First Minister and Andrew Wilson the economist, and the First Minister and Ian Blackford MP) I have concluded that the original response was correct in its conclusion that no information is held and the original handler was correct in their application of section 17(1).

About FOI

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