Documents regarding Gender Recognition Act Reform consultation: FOI release

Information requested

Gender Recognition Act Reform consultation which closed in March 2020.

Please provide a copy of any summary or description provided to the Minister by Scottish Government civil servants of the responses to the above consultation, including any summary of the content of the report from the external analysis of responses, and any summary of the issues raised by consultees and any assessment made of these.

Response

Attached is a copy of some of the information requested. 

• Document 1 (March 2020) Extract of submission to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People
• Document 2 (October 2020) Extract of submission to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People
• Document 3 (June 2021) Extract of submission to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government

Reasons for not providing information
An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested because we intend to publish the final version of that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request. We consider that it is reasonable to withhold the information until that date, rather than release incomplete data and summaries of that information before the planned publication date of the final versions.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in release and this will be met by our planned publication. In the meantime, there is a greater public interest in taking the time necessary to ensure the information has been properly collated before it is published as planned.

We will write to you again, following publication of the analysis report and consultation responses from organisations and groups, to provide you with information included in Document 1 and Document 3 as covered by your request.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested, because it is personal data of a third party, in that it consists of personal information that may identify an individual 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.

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.

FOI202100222993 - Information released

File type

5 page PDF

File size

203.6 kB