Former Chief Social Policy Adviser WhatsApp messages during Covid-19 pandemic: FOI release

Information requested

Carol Tannuhill’s WhatsApp messages from during the Covid 19 pandemic. (This request has been interpreted as relating to Carol Tannahill’s WhatApps messages, rather than Carol Tannuhill’s).

Response

I have taken the period of your request to apply from 21 January 2020 when the World Health Organisation published its ‘Novel Coronavirus’ (2019-nCoV) Situation Report, up until 30 April 2022 when the then remaining Covid-19 restrictions were lifted in Scotland.

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested. I should note that the copies of these messages held by the Scottish Government comprise text only and do not include other media such as images.

An exemption under section 25 of FOISA (Information otherwise accessible), applies to some of the information requested. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. Some of the information you have requested has already been provided to you as part of the response to your previous FOI requests, case references 202400436352, 202400436352 and 202400436346, all of which were released on 12/11/2024. If, however, you are unable to obtain this information from either the previous correspondence or the published responses on the Scottish Government website, then please contact us again and we will send a further copy in a different format.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption under section 38(1)(b)(personal information) of FOISA applies to that information. The reason why that exemption applies to some of the information requested is because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. the names of members of Scottish Government staff who are not Senior Civil Servants and/or personal information such as mobile numbers or personal email addresses, 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 https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202400439462 - Information Released - Annex

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