Publication - FOI/EIR release

Permanent Secretary correspondence to Scottish political party leaders: FOI release

Published: 9 November 2017
Directorate: Constitution Directorate
Topic: Public sector

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

FOI reference: FOI/17/02340
Date received: 12 October 2017
Date responded: 9 November 2017

Information requested

You asked "for the minutes of meeting and correspondence held between Leslie Evans and the leaders of the political parties in The Scottish Parliament from 25 November 2015 to the 10 May 2016".

Response

I enclose, at Annexes B to L, copies of the correspondence you requested. This comprises the correspondence between the Permanent Secretary, Leslie Evans, and the leaders of the political parties in the Scottish Parliament, issued or received between 25 November 2015 and 10 May 2016.

Attachment	Title	Format	Size
Annex B	Letter of 25 November 2015 from the Permanent Secretary to Ms Davidson	PDF	41KB
Annex C	Letter of 25 November 2015 from the Permanent Secretary to Ms Dugdale	PDF	41KB
Annex D	Letter of 25 November 2015 from the Permanent Secretary to Mr Rennie	PDF	41KB
Annex E	Letter of 25 November 2015 from the Permanent Secretary to Mr Harvie and Ms Chapman	PDF	41KB
Annex F	Letter of 26 November 2015 from Ms Davidson to the Permanent Secretary	PDF	293KB
Annex G	Letter of 5 May 2016 from the Permanent Secretary to Ms Davidson - Redacted	PDF	39KB
Annex H	Letter of 5 May 2016 from the Permanent Secretary to Ms Dugdale - Redacted	PDF	38KB
Annex I	Letter of 5 May 2015 from the Permanent Secretary to Mr Rennie - Redacted	PDF	38KB
Annex J	Letter of 5 May 2016 from the Permanent Secretary to Mr Harvie Ms Chapman - Redacted	PDF	40KB
Annex K	Letter of 5 May 2016 from the Permanent Secretary to Ms Sturgeon - Redacted	PDF	38KB
Annex L	Annex provided with all letters of 5 May 2016 from the Permanent Secretary to party leaders	PDF	162KB

2. An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. the mobile telephone numbers of the senior civil servants mentioned in the letters of 5 May 2016 from the Permanent Secretary to party leaders, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. This exemption 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 exemption.

3. 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. The reason why we do not have this information is explained below.

Reasons for not providing information

The Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have asked for because minutes were not taken of the meetings the Permanent Secretary held with the leaders of political parties in the Scottish Parliament during the period in which pre-election access arrangements were in place.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested, namely the minutes of meetings between the Permanent Secretary and the leaders of political parties in the Scottish Parliament between the dates specified in your request (25 November 2015 to 10 May 2016).

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