Publication - FOI/EIR release

Parliamentary Guidance notes in particular relating to MSP’s information requests: FOI release

Published: 21 February 2019
Directorate: Constitution Directorate
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/19/00390
Date received: 6 February 2019
Date responded: 20 February 2019

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Information requested

You asked for Parliamentary Guidance notes provided or to civil servants, in particular the notes relating to requests for information from MSPs, their staff and Parliamentary Clerks.

Response

I enclose a copy of all of the information you requested, consisting of Parliamentary Guidance Notes titled:

Contacts with MSPs and with SPICe
Handling of Parliamentary Questions
SG official evidence to committees of the Scottish Parliament.

Please note that 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 the names and contact details of Scottish Government officials have been redacted) 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 http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.