Communications regarding crown consent provisions in Scottish legislation discussions: FOI Review

Information requested

1) Copies of any internal Scottish government memos, briefing papers or emails concerning the question of changing the handling of crown consent in legislation and/or the way the crown consent provisions are communicated to MSPs, including but not exclusively to and from the Scottish government ministers and their special advisers from 1 July 2021 to date.

2) All correspondence on this topic to and from members of the Royal Household and/or the Royal families representatives, including but not exclusively Bruce Wood of Morton Fraser, acting in his capacity as the Queen’s solicitor in Scotland with officials or Ministers in the Scottish Government from 1 July 2021 to date.

Response

Further to my letter of 1 March, I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for a review of the response to case 20220270508 dated 7 January 2022 seeking:

1) Copies of any internal Scottish government memos, briefing papers or emails concerning the question of changing the handling of crown consent in legislation and/or the way the crown consent provisions are communicated to MSPs, including but not exclusively to and from the Scottish government ministers and their special advisers from 1 July 2021 to date.

2)All correspondence on this topic to and from members of the Royal Household and/or the Royal families representatives, including but not exclusively Bruce Wood of Morton Fraser, acting in his capacity as the Queen’s solicitor in Scotland with officials or Ministers in the Scottish Government from 1 July 2021 to date.

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed, with modifications.

I have reviewed our original response and the information withheld.

I can confirm that one document was withheld in relation to point 1 of your request. Exemptions at Section 29(1)(a) (formulation of Scottish Administration policy) and section 36(1) (confidentiality) of FOISA were applied to information held in this document. On reviewing this document I have found that section 36(1) does not apply and I am removing the reliance on this exemption. In relation to the exemption applied at Section 29(1)(a) on reviewing this document I consider that the exemption does apply to parts of the document and I am therefore releasing those parts of the document where I have found that Section 29(1)(a) does not apply.

In addition I am applying an exemption under Section 30(b)(i) (The free and frank provision of advice) of FOISA and applying Section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA to limited sections of the document. The reasons why these exemptions apply are explained in Annex A to this letter.

Some parts of the document are publicly available in the answer to the Parliamentary Questions provided by the Minister for Parliamentary Business to the Scottish Liberal Democrats, a link to which was provided in our original response. The link to the answer as provided in our original response, is https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers/question?ref=S6W-02027. While I consider that Section 25(1) (Information otherwise accessible) applies to those parts of the document as published as the PQ answer I have provided these as part of this response.

The partially released document is at Annex B with exemptions applied under section 29(1)(a) Formulation of Government Policy, section 30(b)(i) The free and frank provision of advice and section 38(1)(b) personal information.

In relation to part 2 of your request, I have reviewed the searches carried out and can confirm that no information is held that is relevant to this part of your request. A formal notice to this effect should have
been included in our original response. Therefore, this is formal notification under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold information in relation to this part of your 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.

FOI 202200278004 - Information released - Annex A&B

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5 page PDF

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