Number and location of Freedom of Information officers or equivalent: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/02941  
Date received: 15 October 2018 
Date responded: 24 October 2018

 

 

How many FOI officers, assistants or equivalent work in your organisation?

Do they work together as 1 team or are they working in different services/ departments?

What decade was each of the above employees born?

 

The Scottish Government currently operates a devolved model for handling FOI requests and requests are undertaken by individuals who work in the appropriate policy area. This is managed by directorates, divisions, branches or units according to their business and resource needs and the nature of the request. We do not routinely record the number of FOI case handlers in the Scottish Government, however, in 2017 there were 1015 individuals who took ownership of an FOI request.  Depending upon the nature of the request then it is likely that these case handlers will seek advice from the FOI unit and others in the drafting, collating and assessing of the material relevant to the request for information. The FOI unit is centrally based and comprises of 14 individuals that provide a general FOI support service and specialist advice across the Scottish Government. 

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in relation to your question about the decade that the FOI case handler was born in, the Scottish Government does not hold that information. Due to the devolved model of handling FOI’s, any individual in the Scottish Government may undertake a role in an FOI request and there is no business reason to record a decade of birth against the employee undertaking this specific task.

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

The FOI unit were asked and have consented in this instance to provide their respective decades of birth. Please see attached the organogram for the FOI Unit in Annex A. 

 

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