Ministerial engagement briefing documents: EIR release

Information requested

Please can you provide details of the following meeting attended by the then Cabinet Secretary for Finance Derek Mackay, Professor Iain Docherty, Ross Martin and Damian Henderson on the 19 December 2019.

Details being sought include:

• Pre meeting briefing(s)
• Agenda
• Venue and list of attendees
• Minutes or notes from meeting
• Post meeting action points

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

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, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

I attach some of the information requested, please see individual response to the points outlined. 

Information found:

• Pre meeting briefing(s) – Contained in Ministerial Briefing for Cabinet Secretary Derek Mackay MSP attached
• Agenda – Contained in Ministerial Briefing for Cabinet Secretary Derek Mackay MSP attached
• Venue and list of attendees – Contained in Ministerial Briefing for Cabinet Secretary Derek Mackay MSP attached

There are a number of redactions within the briefing which have been excepted under regulation 10(4)(e) - Internal Communications which allows a Scottish public authority to withhold internal communications between members of the same public body. In this case where advice and views are expressed. There are also two redactions which have been excepted under regulation 11(1) - personal data, in this case two private telephone numbers.

Information Omitted:

• Minute or notes from meeting – Information not held when request was received (Regulation 10(4)(a) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004)
• Post meeting action points – Information not held when request was received (Regulation 10(4)(a) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004)

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.

FOI - 202100228798 - Information released

File type

PDF

File size

1.7 MB