Various regarding the Investors dinner at Bute house: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/03546
Date received: 27 November 2018 
Date responded: 27 December 2018

Information requested

In relation to the investors dinner held at Bute House on 15/08/18 and hosted by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Economy and Fair Work - the following be provided:   

1. Any briefing notes provided to the Cabinet Secretary ahead of the dinner.
2. Any written record of the Cabinet Secretary’s speech at the event.
3. Any minutes taken of the meeting.
4. Any communication between the Scottish Government and any of the attendees in the six months prior to the event. 
5. Any post-event communication with any of the attendees, or any post-event summary provided to the Cabinet Secretary by Scottish Government officials.

Any communication between Edinburgh City Council / the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government about the event, in the six months before the event or in the period since the event up to today’s date. 

Response

I attach a copy of most of the information you have requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because we do not hold it and some the information is exempt and section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why we do not hold this information and why that exemption applies are explained in the Annex below.

Reasons for not providing information

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because (i) a speech was not delivered at the dinner (ii) this was a private dinner and no minutes were taken and, (iii) no post-event summary was provided to the Cabinet Secretary by Scottish Government officials.

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

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA also applies to some the information you have requested. The information requested is personal data of a third party and disclosing these details 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

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