Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government's letter to House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee: FOI Review

Information requested

Original Request 202500459046

“Please provide all internal Scottish Government correspondence related to the drafting of Shona Robison‘s letter to the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, dated 16th January 2025. In addition, please answer the following three questions:

(1.) When did John Swinney become aware of the contents of this letter?

(2.) When did Kate Forbes become aware of the contents of this letter?

(3.) Did either John Swinney or Kate Forbes sign off on the contents of the letter before it was sent?”

Response

I have now completed my review of the FOI case ref 2025004595046, under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), in which you had requested the following information:

“Please provide all internal Scottish Government correspondence related to the drafting of Shona Robison‘s letter to the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee, dated 16th January 2025. In addition, please answer the following three questions:
(1.) When did John Swinney become aware of the contents of this letter?
(2.) When did Kate Forbes become aware of the contents of this letter?
(3.) Did either John Swinney or Kate Forbes sign off on the contents of the letter before it was sent?”

The Scottish Government replied to you on 23 April 2025. Our reply consisted of answers to your questions, and a document containing copies of 8 emails to which redactions have been made on the basis of exemptions under section 29(1)(a) (formulation of Government policy), section 30(b)(i) and 30(b)(ii) (free and frank provision of advice and free and frank exchange of views) and section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA. Further explanation of these exemptions and the considerations taken on applying them is contained in the letter.

(the document referenced as doc 1, dated 14 January and titled Fiscal Coordination was reviewed and responded to under ref 202500470311 of 202500459508 and has been included here for completeness as the same document was also released under 202500459046)

On 11 June you requested a review of this decision, “please review the above referenced FOI response on the basis that the exemptions justifying the redactions under sections 29 and 30 of FOISA have been misapplied. Given the profoundly serious consequences of Full Fiscal Autonomy for the Scottish Government’s budget, and the fact that the Scottish Government has already decided to pursue this policy, the public interest in withholding the information plainly does not outweigh the public interest in disclosing it. Since some of the redactions relate to emails that you personally sent, please pass this review to someone for whom this would not be the case.”

I have reviewed the emails and the content of the redactions made, and reconsidered the reasons for applying the exemptions. In my review of the case, I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed with modifications.

My review found that some of the redactions to the emails made on the basis of sections 30(b)(i) and 30(b)(ii) of FOISA do not meet the criteria to apply the exemption, and the information has now been included in the revised response.

I also found that in some cases the application of the exemptions remains justified, and that the public interest test as described above continues to be valid.

A revised response to your request for information is included with this letter.

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 2025470318 - Information Released - Annex

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