List of Scottish Government Ministers and responsibilities: FOI release

Information requested

Accountable to the Scottish Government economy, please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of the economy from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 education

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of education from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 health

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of health from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 justice

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of justice from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 rural affairs

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of the rural affairs from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 housing

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of housing from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 environment

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of the environment from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 equal opportunities

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of the equal opportunities from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 consumer advocacy and advice

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of consumer advocacy and advice from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 transport

Please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of transport from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 taxation please can you the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of taxation from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024 and

Please can you provide the appointment letter of anyone overall in charge of reporting weather from 2019 to 2020 and from 2023 to 2024. 

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. You can find a current list Ministers on the Scottish Government website. If you click on each individual Minister that will then show what their current responsibilities are.

In terms of previous Ministers and their responsibilities, you can find the information here: List of Scottish governments. This provides you with a list of Scottish administrations since 1999. If you click on an administration of your choosing by clicking on the name of the First Minister under the heading ‘Ministry’, you will then be provided with a list of Ministers from that administration, along with their title and - as you have asked - when they were in post. You can therefore see who was in a particular post during the timeframes that you have asked for. 

Some of the issues you are asking about do not necessarily fit neatly into single portfolios and are open to a degree of interpretation. Portfolios of Ministers have changed over the years and some of the issues that you are enquiring about may not necessarily sit neatly within single portfolios. 

There is also cross over between portfolios as different Ministers may have had responsibility for different aspects of an issue at the same time. There are also areas where Ministers within the same portfolio hadresponsibilities at the same time for different aspects of the topics you are asking about. As this information is otherwise accessible to you we do not have to supply it to you. This is therefore a formal notification under section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 that we do not have to supply it to you.

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.

For the final part of your request I have enclosed the standard appointment letter template that is used on appointment of new Ministers.

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 202500472703 - Information released - Annex A

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