Correspondence with Cabinet Secretary for Finance and President of COSLA: FOI release
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
FOI reference: FOI/18/02088
Date received: 3 August 2018
Date responded: 5 September 2018
Information requested
Copies of all correspondence (Email & Letter), between the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the President of Cosla , Councillor Allison Evison for the period of December 2017- March 2018 and May 2018-August 2018, and copies of all correspondence (Email & Letter), between the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Councillor Gail McGregor in her capacity as Cosla Resources Spokesperson for the same periods. This includes communication between their respective offices, assistants/Special Advisers.
Response
I enclose a copy of the correspondence you requested in the Annex to this letter. I note your request does not include the month of April 2018. Document 14, a letter dated 10/04/2018, is not within the scope of your request, but has been provided as it is the reply to the letter in Document 13.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information (names and contact details of some individuals) contained in the correspondence you have requested because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why that exemption applies are explained below.
Reasons for not providing information
An exemption applies.
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information contained in the correspondence you have requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details of some individuals, 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 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.
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3
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