First Minister's agenda and communications from Monday 3rd March 2025: FOI release

Information requested

Please provide all information held by the Scottish Government relating to the activities and communications of the First Minister on Monday 3 March 2025 (0:00AM to 24:00PM). This should include but not necessarily be limited to:

1. Copies of all written materials provided to and/or by the First Minister (FM)
2. Copies of all communications made to and from the FM including any held records of verbal communications
3. A list of the FM’s engagements and meetings, including copies of all minutes.
4. A copy of any day agenda provided to or otherwise created for the management of the activities of the FM.
5. Information relating to the FM’s movements including ministerial cars and signing into and out of Scottish Government facilities and login times on Scottish Government computer systems.
6. Copies of all orders, instructions and decisions issued by the FM.
7. Scottish Government awareness of other information relevant to the FM’s day that is held by other public bodies and not the Scottish Government itself.

Furthermore, if and when exemptions are applied to the provision of information requested here, please note which of the above items they are being applied to (if applicable) and how they are being applied. If the exemption for ‘not held’ is completely applied for any of the above points, please state so explicitly.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested for question 4.

The Scottish Government does not comment on security matters. An exemption under section 39(1) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested to parts of question 4 and 5. This is because disclosure would, or would be likely to, endanger the physical or mental health or safety of an
individual.

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. We recognise that there is some public interest in the security arrangements for the First Minister’s engagements. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in the safety of the First Minister.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on when the First Minister has signed into and out of Scottish Government facilities and the login times of the First Minister on Scottish Government computer systems. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested for parts of question 5.

The Scottish Government does not hold records of other information relevant to the FM’s day that is held by other public bodies and not the Scottish Government itself. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested to all of question 7.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested for questions 1, 2, 3 and 6 would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that, given the scope of your request, in order to locate, retrieve and provide the information to you, we would need to consider a substantial volume of material held by the Scottish Government.

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 of the information you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific category of information (e.g. briefings), as this would allow us to limit the time required to locate, retrieve and provide the information to you.

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: https://www.foi.scot/how-do-i-ask 

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 202500459057 - Information released - Annex A

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