NHS Highland correspondence regarding maternity services in Caithness: FOI release

Information requested

The correspondence with NHS Highland referred to in the parliamentary question S6W-40280: Written question and answer: S6W-40280 | Scottish Parliament Website

All correspondence with NHS Highland since May 2021 with reference to maternity services in Caithness.

Response

I have enclosed a copy of the letter from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health to NHS Highland following her visit to the Maternity Unit at Caithness General Hospital on 30 July 2025. The names of individuals has been removed under Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, Section 38 (1) (b) exemption. The reasons why this exemption applies is explained in the annex to this letter. A small amount of the information has been marked as “out of scope” as it is does not relate to maternity services.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested in relation to “all correspondence with NHS Highland since May 2021 with reference to maternity services in Caithness” would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that in order to locate and retrieve that information, we would need to conduct a search of all records held by the Scottish Government over the 4-year period. It may help if I explain that we file our information according to the subject matter, not by reference to organisations with whom we have corresponded.

Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you could specify the subject matter(s) of the correspondence you are interested in further or restrict your request to a shorter period of time, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

ANNEX

Reasons for not providing information

An exemption applies

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data, ie names, titles 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 202500486261 - Information released - Letter

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