Research commissioned by the Scottish Government that has not been published: FOI release

Information requested

1. A list of all research studies, reports, or reviews commissioned by the Scottish Government since 2019 that have not been published.

2. The total cost of each unpublished study, including payments to external consultants, researchers, or institutions.

3. The reasons why each study was not published.

Response

All social research conducted by the Scottish Government is governed by the Scottish Government Social Research Publication protocol. The protocol requires all social research commissioned by the Scottish Government to be published on the Publications area of the Scottish Government website, under the ‘research and analysis’ heading, within 12 weeks of sign off by the project manager. Under exceptional circumstances a decision not to publish may be made if research is of poor quality, incomplete, or there are serious concerns about the robustness of the research findings. Any such decision not to publish must be approved by the Chief Researcher; the Chief Researcher has not reported signing off non-publication since 2019.

If you have any other research in mind, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government. It may help if I explain that we file our information according to the subject matter, not by reference to whether it is research or has or has not been published. 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 could specify the subject matter you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. 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.

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.