Publication - FOI/EIR release

COVID-19 Communications regarding enhanced masks in schools: FOI release

Published: 6 May 2021
Directorate: Learning Directorate
Topic: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland, Health and social care, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202100167648
Date received: 1 March 2021
Date responded: 29 March 2021

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

Information requested

“I would like the government to release material it holds related to consideration of the use of 'enhanced' masks (ie those that go beyond basic cloth or blue surgical masks, such as but not limited to N95 rated masks).

Communications between the Scottish government and external organisations, groups or individuals regarding enhanced mask use (including all email attachments).
Internal communications between ministers and/or special advisers and/or health or education officials within the Scottish Government and its agencies (including all email attachments).

The time frame for this request is Sept 1 2020 – present.”

Response

While 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 because an exemption under 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names/contact details of individuals, 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.

To be as helpful as possible, information that is out of scope of your request has been removed.

You may find it useful to view the documentation published by COVID-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues. It can be found here.

In addition, the documentation published by the COVID-19 Education Recovery Group may also be of interest to you. It can be found here.

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.