Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS) meetings and documentation: EIR release

Information requested

1. How many meetings has WICS had with the Scottish Government in the last three months, and could you supply minutes/notes from these meetings?

2. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government about the WICS chairman Donald MacRae resigning, including correspondence (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, between September 20 2024 and December 20 2024?

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Annex A contains all of the information that is held by the Scottish Government that is considered to be in scope of your question 1. There have been 16 meetings between Scottish Government and Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS) and available corresponding minutes are provided within Annex A.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reason the Scottish Government does not hold some of the information is because Scottish Government and WICS’ employees engage both formally and informally and minutes at informal meetings are not routinely recorded. Therefore we are refusing your request under regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs, insofar as this relates to minutes that do not exist and are therefore are not held by Scottish Government.

Annex B contains all of the information that is held by the Scottish Government that is considered to be in scope of your question 2:

• letter of resignation dated 3 October 2024 of Donald MacRae, Chair of WICS, addressed to Gillian Martin MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy (NZE);
• correspondence between the Water Sponsorship Team to Cabinet Secretary NZE attaching a submission in relation to the resignation of the Chair of WICS together with a copy of this submission; and
• 1) correspondence between the Water Sponsorship Team to Private Office attaching draft letters from the Cabinet Secretary NZE addressed to each of the Chair of WICS, to the Convenor of the Public Audit Committee (PAC) and to the Convenor of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee (NZET) and 2) the final version of the letter issued to the Chair of WICS on 7 October 2024 by the Cabinet Secretary for NZE.

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 we have applied the following exceptions:

• reg 6(1)(b) information that is already publicly available. The letter from the Cabinet Secretary for NZE to Convenor of PAC is available on the Scottish Parliament website WICS Chair resignation Cab Sec Net Zero and Energy to PAC 7 October 2024. The letter from the Cabinet Secretary for NZE to Convenor NZET Committee is available on the Scottish Parliament website at Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy. We do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact us again and we will send you a paper copy;
• reg 10(4)(e) Redaction of internal communications at:
• Annex A, document 5, item 2 ‘recruitment and restructure’ bullet points 1 and 2; document 11, item 2 ‘PAC Session’ bullet point 3, ‘Restructure’ bullet points 1, 2 and 3 and ‘Staffing Issues’ bullet point 2; and document 15, Item 2 ‘Recruitment and Restructure’, bullet point 3, 5 and 9 and ‘Action List’ bullet point 4.
• Annex B, paragraph ii), document 2, ‘Submission to Cabinet Secretary NZE regarding WICS’ Chair Resignation Offer dated 4 October 2024’ and Annex B, paragraph iii), document 1.

Some of this withheld information is internal legal advice and disclosure would breach legal professional privilege. Some of the documents involve internal communications between officials and providing advice to Ministers. This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in releasing the information as part of an open, transparent and accountable government. However, this is outweighed by the greater public interest in allowing officials a space to discuss the development of any given policy and to maintain the right to confidentiality of communications. This is also outweighed by the strong public interest in maintaining the right to confidentiality of communications between legal advisers and clients, to ensure that Ministers and officials are able to receive legal advice in confidence, like any other public or private organisation.

• reg 11(2) - personal information. Save for the abovementioned exceptions applied under regulations 10(4)(e) and 6(1)(b) with corresponding document numbers, all other redactions in this EIR response relate to personal information which you will note are located throughout the disclosed documents. This applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of third parties and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception 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 exception.

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.

EIR 202500457097 - Information released - Annex A

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PDF

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1.9 MB

EIR 202500457097 - Information released - Annex B

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PDF

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282.1 kB