Correspondence with Luke Van Beek: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for “ALL additional correspondence between Luke Van Beek and the Scottish Government and also copies of internal emails plus any other exchanges which have not yet appeared on the Scottish Government FOI Website and are relevant to the design build and operation of the two Ferries in question”.

Response

The Government has released all of Luke van Beek’s formal outputs under his contract with the Scottish Government to provide expert operational advice – that is, five loan drawdown assurance reports and two quarterly reviews. Due to the subject matter of your request, we would also like to advise that the Scottish Government intends to proactively publish information relating to Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd within 12 weeks from the date of your request. This release will contain information that has not yet been previously published. This information will be made available on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/.

I enclose a copy of some of the information we hold relevant to your request.

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 exemptions apply. Further explanation regarding the applied exemptions have been included in the annex to this letter.

Annex - Reasons for not providing information
Exemptions apply, not subject to the public interest test

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) also applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party 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.

Exemptions apply, subject to the public interest test

An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to some the information requested because we intend to publish that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. We recognise that there is some public interest in release because of Scottish Government’s involvement with Ferguson Marine, and this will be met by our planned publication. In the meantime, there is a greater public interest in taking the time necessary to ensure the information has been properly collated and checked before it is published as planned. Also, we see no public interest in disrupting our programme of work to release the information ahead of the intended publication date.

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/201900005378 - Information Released

File type

2 page PDF

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75.9 kB