Education Scotland emails regarding Aberdeen Council: FOI release

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


Information requested

Information regarding a FOI response - Child protection or safeguarding concerns in Scotland: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) (FOI/202200287758) that states “Education Scotland/ Scottish Government do not hold the information because: "The reason why we have no information is due to our Enterprise Vault permanently deleting any email exchanges we have had with Aberdeenshire Council. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested."

Please send details of the following:
a) All emails regarding the Enterprises Vault issue including when the fault was reported, and all other emails regarding sorting of the Enterprise Vault issue.
b) How many emails were lost due this Enterprise Vault issue and during what timeframe?
c) Did this issue affect correspondence with other local authorities and organisations, if so whom?
d) Has the issue been resolved?
e) Are all Education Scotland emails not backed up on servers?
f) Were those servers searched for the FOI request initially above?
g) Can severs be checked again now to see if emails do in fact exist?
h) Please send details of where this risk is noted on Education Scotland risk registers.
i) Please send details of where risk registers have been updated as a result of this.
j) Please send details of where this operational and governance risk was reported and to whom i.e. government reporting, reporting to Aberdeenshire, board meeting updates on the issue.

Response

The reason why Education Scotland was unable to provide the two email records was due to human error and not part of our records management policy or technical processes. Although, details from the emails were recorded within our safeguarding concerns tracker.

We asked our technical team at the time of finding out that these emails had been lost if the archived emails could be retrieved but unfortunately this was not possible.

Education Scotland aligns with the Scottish Government’s policy on the retention of data and information; under that policy emails that are considered part of the official record should be moved to our electronic document management system (eRDM) so that these can be stored and retrieved as required in the future.

In order to ensure that our email system functions well, emails are automatically archived (to Enterprise Vault) after 60 days and permanently deleted (from the email system only) at the end of one year. These timelines are designed to allow time for officers to determine which correspondence is part of the official record and should be retained on eRDM, and which is not. Archived emails can be re-opened at any time until the deletion date is reached.

The process for saving an archived email to eRDM is slightly different than that for saving one which is within the 60 days and not yet archived. It would appear that, in this instance, the two archived emails were not moved correctly to eRDM. This meant that, while eRDM contains a reference to the emails, the full content was not moved.

I would like to reiterate that it was human error that the two emails were lost.

Please see the attached Annex which will provide you with all emails relating to this matter between March and April 2022.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the names of individuals within the Annex because an exemption under section 38(1)(b), personal information of FOISA applies to that information because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. staff who work for Education Scotland, and disclosing their names 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.

For clarity, I have provided an answer to each of your questions:

a) All emails regarding the Enterprises Vault issue including when the fault was reported, and all other emails regarding sorting of the Enterprise Vault issue.
Please see the attached Annex.

b) How many emails were lost due this Enterprise Vault issue and during what timeframe?
There were only two emails lost.

c) Did this issue affect correspondence with other local authorities and organisations, if so whom?
No. Please refer to the response above.

d) Has the issue been resolved?
Yes, as there were only two emails lost. Please refer to the response above.

e) Are all Education Scotland emails not backed up on servers?
All emails are backed up on a server, however, please refer to the response above.

f) Were those servers searched for the FOI request initially above?
Yes, please refer to emails in the attached Annex.

g) Can servers be checked again now to see if emails do in fact exist?
No, as the two emails have been lost. Please refer to the response above.

h) Please send details of where this risk is noted on Education Scotland risk registers.
This risk has not been recorded as it was human error. Details from any safeguarding emails that we receive are logged on a tracker, an extract was provided in a previous response – 202200329532.

We have both an internal safeguarding role in terms of supporting staff in dealing with safeguarding responsibilities and duties as well as an outward facing role though regional delivery, inspection and review and providing professional policy advice.

Education Scotland does not have direct responsibility for the delivery of services, or for investigating matters related to safeguarding and child protection. Education Scotland is committed to promoting the welfare and wellbeing of its employees and of all children, young people and adults who staff come in to contact with during our work. Safeguarding is the responsibility of everyone in Education Scotland regardless of their individual role.

i) Please send details of where risk registers have been updated as a result of this.
Please see answer at H.

j) Please send details of where this operational and governance risk was reported and to whom i.e. government reporting, reporting to Aberdeenshire, board meeting updates on the issue.
N/A.

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 202200332497 - Information Released - Annex

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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