Queries about FOI review responses issued by the Scottish Government: FOI release

Information requested

1. Why do some review responses given by the SG in response to FOI requests not have an author at the end of the response?
2. Who authored FOI review: 202500450377?
3. How many times this year have FOI review responses contained an author, and the number that do not contain an author?

Response

There are occasions when individuals or teams may decide that the disclosure of colleagues names may risk harassment of, or undue external pressure on, the named officials. This might be because those officials are associated with particularly sensitive or controversial areas of work, but it could be for other reasons. Protection of staff and their ability to work effectively is of paramount importance.

Reference number 202500450377 refers to an FOI request subsequently reviewed under reference number 202500452256. An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to all of the information requested under either case because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. the officials who responded to the request and review respectively 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.

I can confirm that the officials concerned were of appropriate seniority, training and experience to perform their roles.

I have interpreted “this year” to be calendar year 2025 to the date of your request. For this period 55 review responses contained the name of the reviewer, three did not.

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.