Communications relating to the legal advice received pertaining to Harassment Committee: FOI release

Information requested

'Any internal Scottish Government communications (including emails, phone calls, text or WhatsApp messages) on the subject of the legal advice received in connection with the Alex Salmond Judicial Review.

I would like this information from 04 November to 13 November 2020'.

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 the significant volume of documents which would require to be located, retrieved and appropriately redacted. 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 restrict your request to more specific subject matter, 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.

While we cannot prejudge the application of exemptions to any future requests, you may wish to be aware that much of this information would likely be exempt information in terms of section 36(1) of FOISA (confidentiality in legal proceedings) because disclosure would breach legal professional privilege; we consider it is likely that this exemption might also apply to a request which is narrower in scope. You may therefore wish to consider this if you are considering making a further request.

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.