Correspondence regarding Middle East humanitarian aid: FOI release

Information requested

a) All documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about Scottish Enterprise  funding arms companies selling to Israel, from the last three months (i.e 2nd Jan to 2nd Apr),

b) All documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, about the government supplying £250,000 to support humanitarian aid efforts in the Middle East in October 2024, between September 1 2024 and December 1 2024.

Response

a) In response to your first request, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600.

Under section 12 of FOISA, public authorities are unable 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. In this case, to locate, retrieve, and provide all the documents that fall within the scope of this request, within the statutory timescale of 20 days, we would require searches and collation of data by several FOI caseworkers over several weeks. This would mean that costs would exceed the £600 statutory limit.

We would recommend that for future requests, you may wish to consider narrowing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600 – for example, by specifying particular companies or stakeholders of interest and/or focusing on particular correspondence and/or documents of interest. This would greatly assist FOI case handlers in processing your request efficiently and within compliance requirements.

b) In response to your second request, please find our response attached at Annex A as part 1 and 2.

An exemption under section 29(1)(a) of FOISA (formulation or development of Scottish Government policy) applies to some of the information requested because disclosure of this content would, or would be likely to, inhibit substantially the early stages of the policy process where options are identified and considered, risks are identified, consultation takes place and recommendations and submissions are presented to Scottish Ministers. Disclosing the content and structure of policy formulation or development would have a prejudicial effect on the effective conduct of public affairs within the Scottish Government.

The above 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 exemptions. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption for the advice.

An exemption under section 30(b)(ii) of FOISA (free and frank exchange of views) applies to some of the information requested because disclosure of this content would, or would be likely to, inhibit substantially the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation, and have a prejudicial effect on the effective conduct of public affairs within the Scottish Government. Disclosing the content and structure of free and frank briefing material provided to the First Minister would substantially inhibit such briefing in the future.

The above 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 exemptions. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption for the advice.

An exemption under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA (commercial interests) applies to some of the information requested. This exemption applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the commercial interests of companies and organisations being considered to provide commercial services.

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. There is no public interest in releasing information which might damage UK interests and/or the commercial interests of UK companies.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, ie names and contact details of individuals, 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.

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 202500460398 - Information Released - Annex A (Part 1 and 2)

File type

PDF

File size

6.9 MB