First Minister’s social media channels: FOI release

Information requested

I would like to ask a question about a number of videos which the First Minister has taken to posting from his private Social Media profiles. These videos appear to be taken inside Scottish Government property and look to be professionally filmed and edited, but there is nothing to say whether these are privately funded messages from John Swinney, Party Political Materials produced by the SNP or Scottish Government materials made by the Scottish Government.

Can you please tell me which of the above best describes the materials and if they are privately or party funded should they be using Government property as a backdrop to give them some kind of credibility and also should they not be marked that they are produced for that purpose, also were any Scottish Government resources uses in creating them. If these are Scottish Government videos then how much did they cost to produce, why are they not identified as Government official material, how much time did they take to film, were the video and audio created separately and why are they not posted directly from the First Minister or Scottish Government accounts in which case Mr Swinney could repost them from his personal media accounts.

An example of such a video is linked below:

https://x.com/johnswinney/status/1995946548413309050?s=46&t=ZmU5JvB0rFhUQFTKOMs7rg
 

Response

It may be helpful to note that there are several different social media channels which represent the First Minister.

The Scottish Government is responsible for official accounts representing the Office of the First Minister, such as on X at https://x.com/ScotGovFM and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/scotgovfm. These accounts are managed by Scottish Government officials as part of their normal duties as civil servants.

Separately, the First Minister has personal profiles on a number of social media platforms. Those accounts often repost official Scottish Government material, and additional content for the First Minister’s personal channels is supported, at times, by Special Advisers. You may be interested in reading the Special Advisers Code of Conduct.

In relation to your request for production costs and for the length of time spent on filming content, as the work noted above is taken forward by civil servants, including Special Advisers, as part of their normal duties supporting the First Minister and in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by them, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded as there is no business need to do this. This is a formal notice under S.17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

About FOI

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