Correspondence regarding Lorna Slater's meetings: EIR release

Information requested

1. All internal and external correspondence within and sent or received by the Scottish Government including attached documents, meeting handouts, memos, briefings to ministers, attendee lists, location of meeting, notes, minutes, or OneNote memos, linked to the following meetings:
2. Lorna Slater's meeting with Anthie Zachariou, Senior Regional Public Affairs Manager, Deliveroo, Alex Doel, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Uber Eats & Collette Bird, Head of External Affairs, Just Eat on October 6, 2022
3. Lorna Slater's meeting with Hannah Rough, Chief Marketing Officer, Gumtree UK, Robyn Greenacre, Head of PR and Communications, Gumtree UK & Sam Pugh, PLMR on October 6, 2022
4. Lorna Slater's meeting with Dr Pete Cheema OBE: Chief Executive, SGF, Paul Stirling: Group Retail Director, Scotsman Group Plc (and is a member of SGF National Executive), Luke McGarty: Head of Policy and Public Affairs, SGF on October 12, 2022
5. Lorna Slater's meeting with Craig Anderson, Chair, Circularity Scotland Ltd, David Harris – CEO, Circularity Scotland Ltd & Simon Jones, Chief Operating Officer, Circularity Scotland Ltd on October 25, 2022
6. Lorna Slater's meeting with Jamie Delap, Scotland Director, Society of Independent Brewers and Barry Watts, Head of Public Affairs and Policy, Society of Independent Brewers on October 31, 2022.

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

The documents you have requested are attached as a separate annex.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the- Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) applies to some of the information you have requested because it is internal communication between Scottish Government Ministers and officials.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, there is a greater public interest in high quality policy and decision-making, and in the properly considered implementation and development of policies and decisions. This means that Ministers and officials need to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications. Their candour in doing so will be affected by their assessment of whether the discussions on DRS will be disclosed in the near future, when it may undermine or constrain the Government’s view on that policy while it is still under discussion and development.

An exception under regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. The provider of some of the information has denied consent for it to be released to the public. This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release. However, this is outweighed by the need to protect the ability for confidential information to be discussed between a Minister and stakeholder and that the person did not supply the information in circumstances such that it would be made available to the public.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

Annex - 202300338440

File type

60 page PDF

File size

463.8 kB