Materials between the Head of Openness and Learning and Police Scotland: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request 202500448819

Details of all emails, meetings, briefing notes/minutes/phone calls and any other correspondence between Annalena Winslow and Police Scotland.

Response

I have now completed my review of our failure to respond to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for:

“Details of all emails, meetings, briefing notes/minutes/phone calls and any other correspondence between Annalena Winslow and Police Scotland.”

In accordance with section 21(4) of FOISA, I have also reached a decision on your request.

I apologise for the delay in responding to your original request. Our standard procedure is to inform you of any anticipated delays in responding to you. Unfortunately, on this occasion, we failed to provide you with such an update, for which I sincerely apologise. I am now able to provide you with an explanation of the reasons for this delay.

Under s.38(1)(b) of FOISA, the Scottish Government normally redacts the personal information of officials below the grade of Senior Civil Servant. Annalena Winslow is below the grade of a Senior Civil Servant; therefore, we would not normally release her personal data. However, as your request directly named her, it was necessary to consult with Scottish Government solicitors and the FOI advice unit on how we approach your request. When considering the release of information held on any subject, we do not apply exemptions or exceptions in a restrictive way. It is our goal to apply a presumption in favour of disclosure and always give due consideration to the public interest on the subject matter. The FOI advice unit and Scottish Government solicitors needed time to review the legislative requirements of FOISA and consider how those applied to your request.

Searches for the requested correspondence uncovered email chains with large copy lists, and in order to protect personal information, a significant number of manual redactions under s.38(1)(b) of FOISA were required. There is no automated process and this took a substantial amount of time to complete.

Additional information was identified and we had to consider if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. Again, it was necessary to consult with Scottish Government solicitors and the FOI advice unit on this matter. We received this advice on 24 February 2025 and this response and review are being sent to you now that the process of following that advice has been completed.

I can now provide our response to your original request dated 21 January 2025 under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).

Your request

You asked for:

“Details of all emails, meetings, briefing notes/minutes/phone calls and any other correspondence between Annalena Winslow and Police Scotland.”

Response to your request

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

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 exemptions under s.38(1)(b) (personal information) and s.35(1)(a) (prevention or detection of crime) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why these exemptions apply are explained below:

Section 38(1)(b): Personal information of all civil servants below the grade of Senior Civil Servant, such as Deputy Directors, Special Advisors, and Directors are normally redacted. Names of external contacts are only made available if the individual has a public profile, such as a director of a company whose names can be found on their company’s website. 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.

Section 35(1)(a): information where its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. The information that has been redacted references details of a live police investigation and police operations. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. We recognise that there is some public interest in release, due to the high-profile subject matter. However, we have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding 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 202500453454 - Information released - Annex

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