Correspondence received by the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Fair Work and Culture: FOI released

Information requested

Details on correspondence received by Nicola Sturgeon, Kate Forbes, and Fiona Hyslop from Jim McColl, Tom Hunter, John McLaren, and David Phillips, from 23/03/2020 - 24/07/2020 and copies of this correspondence where it exists.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government. It may help if I explain that we file our information according to the subject matter, not by reference to the names of individuals with whom we have corresponded.

Under Section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you could specify the subject matter(s) of the correspondence you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx

We were, however, able to source some correspondence that the respective Ministerial Private Offices had on file at the time of the trawl. For reference Ministerial Private Offices only keep correspondence on file for three months after which time it is disposed of. I enclose a copy of the information we were able to gather down by Minister below. Copies of the correspondence, where this was available, will be included in the attached document.

First Minister:
No correspondence was available

Cabinet Secretary for Finance:
No correspondence was available

Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Fair Work and Culture:
 

Date	Time	Type of Correspondence	Detail	Copies Available
04/06/2020	11:41	Email	Summary of information gathered from hospitality sector	Yes
04/06/2020	12:09	Email	Summary of information gathered from hospitality sector	Yes

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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 202000066387 - Information released

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2 page PDF

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