Restitution order under Section 104 Scotland Act 1998: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for:

1. When the Scottish Government made a request for an order under Section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998 to enable the use of Restitution Orders as set out in the Victims and Witnesses Act 2014 which ended up being entitled the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 (Consequential Modification) Order 2020 (henceforth referred to as ‘the Order’).

2. Any correspondence and/or meetings from the Scottish Government with stakeholders such as the Scottish Police Federation, Police Scotland and the UK Government discussing the provisions which would lead to the request to make the Order. Please limit to between 1 June 2016 to whenever the request was made by the Scottish Government to the UK Government for the order. 

Response

1. The formal request to make the Section 104 Order was made on 26 March 2019 with agreement inprincipal requested on 5 July 2019.

2. Enclosed are copies of some of the information you have 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 exemptions under sections 29(1)(c) (Law officers’ advice) and 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA apply to that information. The reasons why these exemptions apply are explained in Annex A and Annex B.

Annex A
An exemption under section 29(1)(c) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested and therefore information in relation to the advice provided by law officers has not been provided. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. 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, to enable law officers to provide legal considerations to officials. Should the information be released it is likely that this would have an inhibiting effect on the provision of legal advice.

Annex B
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested. Individual names and email addresses have not been provided and this exemption applies as it relates to personal information. 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.

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FOI202000118535 - Information released

File type

39 page PDF

File size

1.3 MB