Tearfund Scotland incident report: FOI review

FOI reference: FOI/18/00706
Date received: 9 April 2018
Date responded: 1 May 2018

Information requested

Copies of all correspondence including but not limited to, emails, notes of telephone calls, letters, reports and publications concerning allegations of sexual abuse, prostitution or sexual misconduct on Scottish government funded aid or international development projects, or concerning officials, workers or volunteers connected on such projects between 27 February 2014 and 27 February 2018.

Response

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed with modifications.

Following careful reconsideration of the information within scope of your request I have concluded that we were not entitled to apply an exemption under section 30(b)(ii) (free and frank exchange of views). As such I have identified a piece of correspondence that should have been released with the original response and have now attached it an Annex below. I can confirm that the attached document and the documents attached to the original response letter dated 26 March 2018 are the totality of the correspondence which falls within the scope of your request.

You also believe that it is "unreasonable and an excessive use of the powers available" that the exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) is applied to the name of the project, the location and the identity of the alleged assailant. This exemption is, in fact, only applied to a small amount of the information provided in the response of 26 March 2018 and is done so to protect the alleged victim's identity and to uphold the principles in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 1998. As this exemption is not subject to the public interest test we are not required to consider this as part of the public disclosure of information.

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

FoI 18-00706 - related documents - email correspondence.pdf

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1 page PDF

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190.4 kB