Legal advice and cost of case against For Women Scotland Ltd: FOI release
- Published
- 21 January 2025
- Directorate
- Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights Directorate
- Topic
- Equality and rights, Public sector
- FOI reference
- FOI/202400443019
- Date received
- 28 November 2024
- Date responded
- 30 December 2024
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
Information requested
- How much has it cost the Scottish Government in total to defend this legal case at the UK Supreme Court?
- Please provide/publish the legal advice relating to this case given to the Scottish Government.
Response
The answer to your first question is £61,928.80 to date.
For your second question, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.
You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you may wish to narrow the time period you are interested in and/or narrow the matters which you seek information in respect of. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.
The Scottish Government has published it’s written case which can be found here - For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent): supreme court hearing – statement of case - gov.scot.
Further, the Supreme Court live streamed the hearings and you can watch them here - For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent) - UK Supreme Court.
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.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
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