Supplementary question information regarding Portfolio Question sessions: FOI Review
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
Information requested
Original request 202500455929
Pertaining to work done, communications made, and documentation produced and sent between 1 March 2024 and present, for all Deputy First Minister Responsibilities, Economy and Gaelic and Finance and Local Government Portfolio Questions sessions between 1 January and present date, please provide, for each instance when Scottish Ministers were made aware of the content of a supplementary question before the time of its oral delivery:
a) the time & date of when they were made aware
b) the content and deliverer of the question
c) copies of the communication that first supplied this information.
Response
I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for:
Pertaining to work done, communications made, and documentation produced and sent between 1 March 2024 and present, for all Deputy First Minister Responsibilities, Economy and Gaelic and Finance and Local Government Portfolio Questions sessions between 1 January and present date, please provide, for each instance when Scottish Ministers were made aware of the content of a supplementary question before the time of its oral delivery:
a) the time & date of when they were made aware
b) the content and deliverer of the question
c) copies of the communication that first supplied this information.
In response we issued a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you requested.
You requested a review on 2 April 2025. Following receipt of your request for a review, a further search was conducted and I have concluded that a different decision should be substituted.
A further search confirmed that we do hold information within the scope of your request. I have considered this information and determined that some information should be released in response. I apologise for the error in our original search process and can assure you that we will consider our approach more carefully in future. The relevant documents identified are included in Annex B. Some personal data has been redacted from certain documents in compliance with section 38(1)(b) of FOISA.
Annex A
The exemptions applied in this instance are:
Section 38(1)(b) – Personal data
Some information has been withheld as an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal data) of FOISA applies to that information, this is because it is personal data of a third party 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.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG