Victoria Quay workplace nursery correspondence: FOI Review

Information requested

Original Request - 202500470932

1) All correspondence between the Scottish Government (including, but not limited to, People Directorate and the Scottish Procurement and Property Directorate) and a) His Majesty’s inspectors of schools, b) the Care Inspectorate and c) the Scottish Social Services Council in relation to the nursery, for the period from 1 January 2024 to the date of this request.

2) All correspondence and communications within the Scottish Government in connection with any such correspondence with His Majesty’s inspectors, the Care Inspectorate or the Scottish Social Services Council.

Response

Thank you for your email dated 14 July 2025, in which you requested a review of our response dated 11 July to your request made under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2004 (FOISA), ref 202500470932, for -

“1) All correspondence between the Scottish Government (including, but not limited to, People Directorate and the Scottish Procurement and Property Directorate) and a) His Majesty’s inspectors of schools, b) the Care Inspectorate and c) the Scottish Social Services Council in relation to the nursery, for the period from 1 January 2024 to the date of this request.

2) All correspondence and communications within the Scottish Government in connection with any such correspondence with His Majesty’s inspectors, the Care Inspectorate or the Scottish Social Services Council” where references to “the nursery” mean the workplace nursery at Victoria Quay.

You specifically asked us to review two aspects of our response: how we treated the scope of the request; and the application of section 38(1)(b) exemptions.

Regarding the scope of the request, I found no record of searches having been carried out for correspondence with the Scottish Social Services Council (or “SSSC”); some inaccuracies in the search criteria used (e.g. “Care Commission” instead of “Care Inspectorate”) and a lack of searches for obvious variants (such as “SSSC” instead of “Scottish Social Services Council”).

Fresh searches were made as part of this review. I can confirm that, following the fresh searches, no further instances of relevant correspondence with or in connection with the Scottish Social Services Council, or the other named bodies, was found.

I also found that the reference in an e-mail of 24 February 2025 to an attached letter appears not to have been noticed. The attached letter was not forwarded to the case handler and no request for it was made. Hence, when the response to your FOI was made, the letter (which is in fact an e-mail) had not been examined to determine whether or not it was in scope of your request. I am enclosing a redacted version of that document, redacted for personal information under the section 38(1)(b) exemption, (as document E) with this response.

I also found that, in the redaction process, the stem of the e-mail (e.g. “@gov.scot”), which should be left visible, had been redacted in error. I am therefore re-issuing the original information release (as documents A to D), with the redactions amended to accord with this practice.

I now turn to your second point, the application of the section 38(1)(b) exemption.

The Scottish Government has a general policy on releasing officials’ names, as set out on the staff intranet, Saltire. That policy is that, while requests are considered on a case-by-case basis, the names of staff below Senior Civil Service who do not have a public-facing role should generally be redacted.

After reviewing the original response, I have concluded that the decision to withhold the names of junior officials under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA should be confirmed, albeit that we could perhaps have explained more fully why the exemption applied to Scottish Government junior officials. Disclosing these names would contravene the data protection principles set out in the UK GDPR, as these individuals are not in senior or public-facing roles and would not reasonably expect, in line with our general approach, that their names would be disclosed. Specifically, it is the first data protection principle in Article 5(1) of the GDPR which would be contravened through release of this information, 5(1)(a), which states that personal data shall be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject. We have determined that such disclosure would be unfair and therefore unlawful.

In considering that 5(1)(a) will be contravened, we have concluded that the only condition that could apply to allow us to lawfully process personal data and disclose that information in response to your request is 6(f) –

“processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.”

Therefore, I have gone on to consider whether you have a legitimate interest in the information, and whether your legitimate interests in the information outweigh the rights and freedoms of the data subjects in this case, and have concluded that they do not.

To summarise, our grounds for withholding names under the exemption at 38(1)(b) are because of the lack of a lawful basis for disclosure.

I have also noted that the reference to GPDR in our previous response was a typing error and should have read UK GDPR. I have reviewed that the exemption has not been applied in a blanket fashion and have individually considered each official's name. I hope this detailed explanation meets your expectations as per our duties under the Scottish Ministers’ Section 60 Code of Practice.

Thank you for your understanding, and please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions or concerns.

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 202500475653 - Information Released - Documents A to E

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