Engagements held in Bute House: FOI release
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
Information requested
- Any and all engagements hosted in Bute House between 5th to 9th May 2025.
- The First Ministers diary of engagements for the week of 5th to 9th May 2025.
- Any and all communication from or to the First Minister for the week of 5th to 9th May 2025.
- A list of attendees, visitors or other persons signed into Bute House for the week of 5th to 9th May 2025.
Response
Question 1 – Any and all engagements hosted in Bute House between 5th to 9th May 2025 I enclose a copy of the information you requested at ANNEX A.
Question 2 – The First Ministers diary of engagements for the week of 5th to 9th May 2025 I enclose a copy of the information you requested at ANNEX B.
Question 3 – Any and all communication from or to the First Minister for the week of 5th to 9th May 2025
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.
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. 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 http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx
Question 4 – A list of attendees, visitors or other persons signed into Bute House for the week of 5th to 9th May 2025
I enclose a copy of the information requested at ANNEX C
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.
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