Health Board operation of Workforce Policies: FOI Review

Information requested

Thank you for your review request dated 15 September 2022 under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). You have requested a review of point 3 of your original request (ref 202200316244) which is as follows:

When was the last meeting held between the Cabinet Secretary and appropriate representation from NHS Highland to discuss progress and follow up of The Sturrock Report /The Healing Process plus any concerns expressed to the Cabinet Secretary by members of the public. Please provide a copy of any record kept of this meeting.

Your review request provided the following additional information:
With reference to the FOI response noted above can you please review the response on the basis of the point noted below in relation to item 3. The reference in the last part of the question is, I believe quite clear in the sense that it relates to concerns expressed to the Cabinet Secretary by members of the public. If there were no specific concerns via this route this should be stated or alternatively, if concerns were raised via direct contact with the cabinet secretary the response fails to identify how these are dealt with.

For clarity ‘concerns raise to the Cabinet Secretary by members of public' should include any concerns raised or copied directly or raised by an MSP on behalf of a constituent.

If the cabinet secretary has had no specific discussions regarding concerns raised with him please confirm this is the case.

Response

In light of the additional information provided by you I have reviewed your original request and I can confirm I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed, with modifications.

For clarity, the response provided below is based on interpretation of the above question (including the additional information you have provided in your review request) as requesting details of any concerns raised with the current Cabinet Secretary by members of the public (directly or through their MSP) and which the Cabinet Secretary then had specific discussions with either NHS Highland representatives, the MSP or the member of the public directly about these concerns.

I can confirm that one meeting took place with Mr Edward Mountain, MSP, on 22 September 2021 following correspondence from NHS Highland employees and requests from MSPs. A note of this meeting is attached. An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names 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.

I have also removed information that is out of the scope of your request. This is clearly marked in the information that is supplied.

Please note that one of the actions in the notes refers to arranging a suitable time for a parliamentary debate following the Sturrock review. This has recently been amended to providing a Ministerial Statement on fostering positive cultures. The Statement is still to be scheduled.

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 202200320792 - Information Released - Annex

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