Correspondence with NHS Tayside in 2018: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01087
Date received: 9 April 2018
Date responded: 4 May 2018

Information requested

'Copies of all communications (written and electronic) between the office of the health secretary (i.e. the HS and her staff) and members of NHS Tayside since the start of 2018 with regards to;

• The mis-accounting of £5.3m of eHealth funding provided by NHS National Services Scotland as 'deferred expenditure' by NHS Tayside and the Grant Thornton report on this matter;

• The alleged inappropriate appropriation of £2.7m of endowment fund money from the NHS Tayside Health Fund;

• The enactment of ministerial powers to depose the Chief Executive and Chairman of NHS Tayside.

You subsequently clarified that you are seeking communications between the Cabinet Secretary's private office and NHS Tayside Board members.'

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. This information relates to your request for communications between the Cabinet Secretary for Health and her private office and NHS Tayside Board members with regards to "The enactment of ministerial powers to depose the Chief Executive and Chairman of NHS Tayside.

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, ie names/contact details of individuals, 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.

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 reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.

Reasons for not providing information

The Scottish Government does not have the information.

The Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have asked for because there were no written or electronic communications between the office of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and members of NHS Tayside since the start of 2018 with regards to "the mis-accounting of £5.3m of eHealth funding provided by NHS National Services Scotland as 'deferred expenditure' by NHS Tayside and the Grant Thornton report on this matter" or "the alleged inappropriate appropriation of £2.7m of endowment fund money from the NHS Tayside Health Fund."

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

About FOI

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FOI-18-01087 - related email correspondence.pdf

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7 page PDF

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284.6 kB