Aberdeen City Council (Drinking in Public Places) Byelaws 2009 correspondence: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request: 202500499558

Part 1

There was a statutory requirement (Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, s.202A)) for these byelaws to be reviewed not later than 10 years from them coming into force, i.e. by 1st October 2019.

Please provide all correspondence relating to the review of the byelaws between the Scottish Government (SG) and each of:

1. Aberdeen City Council (ACC);
2. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS); and
3. Police Scotland.

Of particular interest is any correspondence referencing, or relating to, SG Circular No.LJ/02/2014 ("Byelaws prohibiting consumption of alcohol in designated public places circular: August 2014") [https://www.gov.scot/publications/byelaws-prohibiting-consumption-of-alcohol-in-designated-publicplaces-august-2014-circular/] and how it came to be that sections 5 and 6 of this advice were disregarded by ACC when reviewing the byelaws, despite the advice being "new information" between the introduction of the byelaws in 2009 and their review in 2019.

Part 2

Please provide all internal correspondence within SG which refers to, or relates to:

1. These specific ACC byelaws;
2. Byelaws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in general (or byelaws specific to other local authority areas), particularly regarding their compatibility with the advice and policies in the SG Circular; and
3. SG's policy position on byelaws which prohibit, or seek to prohibit, the consumption of alcohol in public places, particularly across entire local authority areas.

The period for which correspondence is requested for both Parts 1 and 2 is from 1st January 2019 until the date of your response to this request.

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for -

The request relates to the Aberdeen City Council (Drinking in Public Places) Byelaws 2009 and is in two parts.

Part 1

There was a statutory requirement (Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, s.202A)) for these byelaws to be reviewed not later than 10 years from them coming into force, i.e. by 1st October 2019.

Please provide all correspondence relating to the review of the byelaws between the Scottish Government (SG) and each of:

1. Aberdeen City Council (ACC);
2. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS); and
3. Police Scotland;

Of particular interest is any correspondence referencing, or relating to, SG Circular No.LJ/02/2014 ("Byelaws prohibiting consumption of alcohol in designated public places circular: August 2014") [https://www.gov.scot/publications/byelaws-prohibiting-consumption-of-alcohol-in-designated-publicplaces-august-2014-circular/] and how it came to be that sections 5 and 6 of this advice were disregarded by ACC when reviewing the byelaws, despite the advice being "new information" between the introduction of the byelaws in 2009 and their review in 2019.

(Explanatory note: The byelaws were not changed following the 2019 review: they still cover the entire ACC area and have therefore created a "blanket ban" on drinking in public, contrary to the advice in the SG Circular, which states this would be considered "unacceptable").

Part 2

Please provide all internal correspondence within SG which refers to, or relates to:

1. These specific ACC byelaws;
2. Byelaws prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in general (or byelaws specific to other local authority areas), particularly regarding their compatibility with the advice and policies in the SG Circular; and
3. SG's policy position on byelaws which prohibit, or seek to prohibit, the consumption of alcohol in public places, particularly across entire local authority areas.

The period for which correspondence is requested for both Parts 1 and 2 is from 1st January 2019 until the date of your response to this request.

I have concluded that the response should be confirmed without modification. 

The request for a review is based on separate correspondence that you have had with Aberdeen City Council Regulatory and Compliance Team which suggested that there were additional emails that were identified but did not form part of the original answer. Consequently, you have requested an internal review of the response to both Part 1 and Part 2 of the reply, on the basis that the response provided was incomplete and that not all relevant information had been identified. 

I have revisited the original response and the searches undertaken which informed its content and have concluded that these were appropriate to the original ask. I have not identified any new documentation that falls within scope of your request. I have therefore determined that on that basis that all information relevant to to Part 1 and Part 2 of your request has been identified and considered for disclosure.

Advice and assistance

That said I have contacted Aberdeen City Council and asked them to share any relevant correspondence which has informed your decision to request a review, and to help ensure that our searches were as thorough as possible.

They were able to provide a copy of an email, which was not held on SG systems, and which I have attached here as part of our duty to provide advice and assistance. As this email was not held on SG systems at the time of receiving your request or review request, this cannot alter our response. However, I am providing it to you now, with personal information redacted, for clarity and to help you understand our response. It does not form part of the review response, and is provided to you proactively and not under FOISA.

As you outline this has not come through the search process that was undertaken which leads me to conclude that it may not have been recorded correctly or not recorded at all. We will look at what we can do to ensure processes are reviewed to correct this going forward.

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 202600503252 - Information released - Annex A

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