Scottish Minister FOI e-mail correspondence: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00453
Date received: 9 February 2018
Date responded: 6 March 2018

Information requested

• Emails sent to the FOI SpAds PO email address from Scottish Ministers or their staff or offices in January 2018

• Emails sent from the FOI SpAds PO email address to Scottish Ministers or their staff in January 2018

Response

1. I enclose a copy of the information you requested at Annex A. A small amount of information has been redacted from this guidance because an exemption under section 38(1)(b)(personal information) applies to the personal data of a third party 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.

2. It might be helpful to explain that the FOI SpAds PO mail box was set up in January 2017 to assist with the management of FOI cases within the Special Advisers' office when officials seek advice from Special Advisers on a FOI case in advance of the case going to Ministers for clearance. The use of a dedicated FOI mailbox replaced the previous system of FOI cases being sent to the Special Advisers' office general administration mailbox and was one of the steps taken to address concerns expressed by the then Scottish Information Commissioner about the Scottish Government's failure to meet its FOI performance targets.

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 A 00453.pdf

File type

14 page PDF

File size

415.8 kB