Short Life Working Group: FOI release

Information requested

1. A list of all members of the short life working group, set up by the Scottish Government to "act on the UK Supreme Court judgment" in the For Women Scotland vs Scottish ministers case.

Where members are senior civil servant level, please provide their names and job titles. If they are not senior civil servant level, please provide their job titles and grade. If members have a title/designation within the group (for example, chair, vice chair, etc) please state this too.

2. a) A list of the dates on which this group has met, either virtually or in person,

     b) and who attended.

3. A list of all people/organisations who have attended any meeting who is not a member of the group. Please specify which meetings these individuals/groups have attended.

4. The agendas of all of these meetings.

5. The minutes, or any other records, of all of these meetings.

Response

In relation to the Short Life Working Group in response to the Supreme Court Judgment in For Women Scotland vs. The Scottish Ministers, you have a number of asks which we will respond to each in-turn.

1. A list of all members of the Short Life Working Group.

2b. Who attended the meetings.

4. The agendas of all of the meetings of the Short Life Working Group.

5. The minutes, or any other records, of the Short Life Working Group meetings.

An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applied to the above information you have requested because we intend to publish that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request. The Scottish Government intends to publish the Short Life Working Group’s members list alongside the Terms of Reference, Agendas and Minutes of the meetings to maintain transparency. An attendance list of the meetings will be included in the minutes.

As this information will be published within the 12 weeks of the date of your request we consider it reasonable to withhold the information rather than release the information requested before it has been published.

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. We recognise that there is some public interest in releasing the information requested to be transparent. However, given that the information requested will be subject to release within the appropriate timeframe we do not consider that the public interest in releasing the information immediately outweighs the public interest in the administrative process running its course.

2a. A list of dates the Short Life Working Group has met.

The dates which the Short Life Working Group have met since it was convened to the date of your request (1 July 2025) are listed below:

• 30 April 2025
• 13 May 2025
• 29 May 2025
• 6 June 2025
• 17 June 2025
• 4 July 2025
• 17 July 2025

3. A list of all people/organisations who have attended any meeting who is not a member of the group.

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because there has been no external parties attend the Short Life Working Group who are not a member of the group.

As such, I hereby provide you with formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

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.