Correspondence sent from the First Minister to City of Edinburgh Council Leader regarding Divestment and Sanctions Against the State of Israel: FOI release

Information requested

“On the 29th September, City of Edinburgh Council Leader Jane Meacher wrote to First Minister John Swinney. Please see a copy of this letter attached.

1. Can you confirm if a reply has been sent, and if so, can you forward a copy, please?
2. Can you confirm if similar letters or enquiries have been received from other Scottish Public bodies that are subject to Section 17 of the Local Government Act 1988, and if so, can you forward copies, please?
3. Can you forward any notes, minutes, or correspondence between Mr Swinney's office and others in this regard?
​​​​​​​4. Can you confirm if any particular SG department or, job role has been tasked with looking into this and if so :

• Can you confirm which department and job role
• Can you confirm their scope, please?
• Can you confirm if conclusions have been made, and if so, forward a copy of these, and if not, can you confirm the likely date for presenting conclusions/advice, please?

​​​​​​​(Relevant section of the act quoted in CEC letter being: "which prevents local authorities and some other public bodies from taking non-commercial matters, including the location of any country or territory of the business activities or interests of contractors, into account in procurement or contract termination decisions")”

Response

1. ​​​​​I enclose a copy of the letter sent by the First Minister, John Swinney, to the leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, Jane Meagher, dated 10th November 2025.
2. I can confirm there are no similar letters or enquiries from other Scottish public bodies. 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.
3. I enclose the following pieces of correspondence: an email from Mr Swinney’s private office asking officials within the Scottish Government to consider and respond to Ms Meagher’s letter, dated 30th September 2025, and; an email from confirming that the First Minister is content for the response to be issued to Ms Meagher, dated 8th November 2025. The other relevant piece of communication is the letter sent by the First Minister, John Swinney, to the Leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, Jane Meagher, dated 10th November 2025. A copy of this letter is already attached as per request 1, above. 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 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.
4. To respond to point four of your request I can confirm that policy responsibility for issues related to Section 17 of the Local Government Act 1988 falls within the remit of the Scottish Government’s Scottish Procurement and Property Directorate (SPPD). However, the impact of the restrictions imposed by Section 17 of that Act on the ability of relevant bodies to respond to the situation in Gaza is not under active consideration. 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. This is because, in addition to the Local Government Act 1988, public procurement is also bound by a number of international agreements which are given effect by domestic legislation, such as the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015. These international agreements require that the bidders, goods and services of other countries which are signatories – including Israel – must be treated equally to Scottish and UK bidders, goods and services. It has been the long-standing position of the Scottish Government that a blanket boycott of Israeli bidders, goods or services, would not be compliant with the terms of international agreements, such as the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement. Notwithstanding section 17 of the 1988 Act, it has also been the long-standing and publicly-stated position of the Scottish Government that the exploitation of assets in illegally-occupied territory is likely to constitute grave professional misconduct on the part of a bidder for a public contract, giving rise to a ground on which that bidder might be excluded from tender exercises. Any such decision would have to be made by the authority awarding the contract based on the evidence before it.

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FOI 202500496657 - Information Released - Annex

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