JR Withers Advisory Ltd and Excel Assemblies Ltd correspondence and spend: FOI release

Information requested

1. All money that the Scottish Government (or any of its executive non-departmental public bodies or agencies) has provided to JR Withers Advisory Ltd and Excel Assemblies Ltd in 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25 and so far in 2025-26, providing the amounts given by the Scottish Government or its agencies to each company for every financial year and the reason that these funds were provided.

2. Any correspondence or meetings between Scottish Ministers and these companies (or their employees/directors) since 8 May 2024. Please provide this correspondence and any notes of meetings that have occurred, including attendees of the meetings, actions that have taken place and minutes of the meetings.

Response

Your request Part 1

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because our searches show that no payments have been made by the Scottish Government to either JR Withers Advisory Ltd or Excel Assemblies Ltd since 2021/22.

Please note that this response relates to information regarding payments from core Scottish Government only.

Each public authority in Scotland operates independently under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) and is responsible for managing its own records. Information regarding payments made by public bodies or agencies should be requested directly from them. The list of public bodies and their contact details are available in the National Public Bodies Directory, available online at National public bodies: directory - gov.scot.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

​​​​​​​Regarding the Independent Review of the Skills Delivery Landscape ("the Withers Review")

You may be interested to note that James Withers, who is director of JR Withers Advisory Ltd, was appointed as Independent Advisor to lead the Skills Delivery Landscape review from September 2022 to May 2023. This was a Ministerial public appointment that at no point related to JR Withers Advisory Ltd. Further information on this appointment and the related fee paid to Mr Withers is available from a Scottish Government FOI release dated 12 August 2024 available on the Scottish government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202300366150/

​​​​​​​Your request Part 2

​​​​​​​Excel Assemblies Ltd.

Our records show that since 8 May 2024 there has been no correspondence between Scottish Ministers and Excel Assemblies Ltd., or their directors.

​​​​​​​This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested in relation to Excel Assemblies Ltd..

​​​​​​​JR Withers Advisory Ltd.

The records show that since 8 May 2024 there were two instances of correspondence between Scottish Ministers and Mr James Withers of JR Withers Advisory Ltd, which resulted in meetings.

​​​​​​​I enclose a copy of this information, as requested, under Annex A.

​​​​​​​Exemptions under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) apply to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. 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.​​​​​​​

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 202500479444 - Information Released - Annex A

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