Correspondence regarding Irish Presidential visit June 2016: FOI release

Information requested

All internal correspondence and communications regarding Irish President Michael Higgins' visit to Scotland in June 2016 all internal correspondence and communications regarding Irish President Michael Higgins' visit to Scotland in June 2016

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information that you have requested, in the format that you asked for.

Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide a small amount of the information you have requested. An exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal data) of FOISA applies because the some of the information is personal data of a third party, ie the names and contact details of Scottish Government officials below Senior Civil Service level, 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.

I would like to make clear however that this exemption has been applied in documents 1 to 4, 7 and 8 and where appropriated this information is marked up as [redacted]. Documents 5 and 6 have been released in full and no documents have been withheld in their entirety. The only information redacted is the personal information relating to officials and as such it is my sincere hope that this will not reduce the value of the information that you have requested.

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-202000059394 - Information released

File type

23 page PDF

File size

536.3 kB