Quality assurance procedures to assess quality of FOI responses: FOI release

Please set out the quality assurance procedures the Scottish Government has in place to assess the quality of responses to FOI requests

(a) before the FOI response letter is issued; and

(b) after the FOI response letter is issued. 

I am not interested here in the advice and guidance offered by the FOI Unit but specifically robust quality assurance procedures.  I am also aware of the Action Plan prepared following the Scottish Information Commissioner’s Intervention Report.

A)   Most of the information you have requested is available from https://www.gov.scot/publications/freedom-of-information-document-collection/

Point 33 of the step by step guidance details the clearance process.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. 

As well as the guidance available to all staff on our SharePoint site some business areas have put additional quality assurance procedures in place.  Information about these can be found at Annex A.

B)   The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because there are no formal quality assurance processes once a response has been issued.

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

You may wish to note however that the publications team within the FOI unit do quality assure responses that are to be published to ensure that the Scottish Government meets is statutory obligations under the General Data Protection Regulations.