Publication - FOI/EIR release

Corporate Operations Directorate created within the Scottish Government: FOI release

Published: 9 October 2025
Directorate: Corporate Operations Directorate
Topic: Business, industry and innovation, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202500478155
Date received: 30 July 2025
Date responded: 25 August 2025

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002

Information requested

A new Operations Directorate is being created within the Scottish Government. Under the FOI Act I’d like to request the following.

1. All board papers for the steering board. These should include but not limited to

Agendas
Minutes
Decision logs
Papers

2. All board papers for the Working Group ‐ People. These should include but not limited to

Agendas
Minutes
Decision logs
Papers

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested in PDF format, you will find an overview at the end of this letter.

Exemptions under sections s.17, s.33(1)(b), s. 30(b)(i), s.30(c) and s.38(1)(b) of FOISA apply to some of the information you have requested. Exemption 38 (1)(b) applies to personal data included in some of the documents, exemption 33(1)(b) applies to commercially sensitive information, exemption s.30(b) (i) relates to documents containing internal advice around or sensitive operational decisions, s.30(c) relates to information that would undermine operational security or incident response protocols, and exemption 17 applies where there are no supporting papers for the meeting.

Overview of information provided:

Corporate Operations Steer Co
Date	Agenda	Papers
30 January 2025	Introductions Updates from Working groups Business services Reshaping the Directorates Shape Corporate Operations Structure Communications and Change Management People Finance, Governance and Risk Portfolio (written update taken from Teams) AOB	Note of meeting: No. 6 Papers: No.1 No. 7 No. 11 No. 13 No. 15 No. 17
27 February 2025	Update from the Re-structuring the Directorates working group In scope Out of scope Edge cases for discussion Future of Working Groups Change management / comms update	Note of meeting: No. 5 Papers: No. 9 No. 10 No. 12 No. 14 No. 16
25 March 2025	Reconfirm scope Communications Confirm which working groups to close Update on eProcurement discussions Structure Update AOB	Note of meeting: No. 3
13 May 2025	None	Note of Meeting: No. 2
26 June 2025	Update all on where we are in our approvals journey Aspirations for when we might be able to formally create Corporate Operations and what we’d need to do to re-visit the workstreams that were placed on hold Comms	Note of Meeting: No. 4 Papers: No. 8

Working Group – People
Date	Agenda	Papers
17 February 2025	Introductions Consider scope of the people workstream Agree roles and responsibilities, attendance Agree deliverables (high level) Agree dependencies between other workstreams Outline Restructuring & Reassignment policy Business Case – outline process Staff engagement Trade Union engagement Risks and Issues	None - s.17 exemption
13 March 2025	None - s.17 exemption	None - s.17 exemption
8 April 2025	Structure discussion and update on FTE position Initial mapping of roles Staff comms Culture and OD requirement	None - s.17 exemption
20 May 2025	None - s.17 exemption	None - s.17 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.

FOI 202500478155 - Information released - Annex

File type: PDF
File size: 3.6 MB

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

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