Social Security Scotland Executive Advisory Body advice on Annual Business Plan: FOI release

Information requested

Further to my email of 28/06/2019, I have now completed my review of our failure to respond to your request dated 30 May 2019 under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) which asked:

Under FOISA please provide the advice from members of the Executive Advisory Body in relation to the draft structure of the Annual Business Plan, audience and accessibility, as discussed at section 5 in the SSS Executive Advisory Body April 2019 minutes at https://dgxmvz0tqkndr.cloudfront.net/production/images/general/Governance-Executive-Advisory-Body-Meeting-5-16-April-2019-Minutes-for-Publishing.pdf

In accordance with section 21(4) of FOISA, I have also reached a decision on your request.

My review found this request (our reference FOI/19/01370) was received alongside a number of other requests, including FOI/19/01363, which asked for all notes, agendas, draft minutes, and any correspondence relating to the drafting of minutes, from the Executive Advisory Body on 16 April 2019 which resulted in a delay in compiling, reviewing and clearing the responses for release.

I apologise that we were unable to issue these responses on time. Social Security Scotland are working to refine and improve our performance and processes for replying to Freedom of Information requests.

Response

I can now provide our response to your original request.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you 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 an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to the information. The reasons why this exemption applies is explained in the annex of this letter.

Reasons for not providing information - Annex
An exemption applies
s.38(1)(b)

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested, such as names or initials. Disclosing this information 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.

FOI-19-01370 - Information Released

File type

3 page PDF

File size

84.7 kB