Job titles and responsibilities of Constitutional Briefing Team: FOI release

Information requested

Please list the civil servants who work in the Constitutional Briefing Unit, by name or by job title, and provide the job decision for each position.

Response

The Constitutional Briefing Team (formerly known as the Constitutional Briefing Unit) are responsible for handling FOI requests, Ministerial correspondence, Parliamentary questions and briefing materials for Ministers; Executive Assistant functions for the Director of the Constitution Directorate; support for Business Management and Risk functions of the Directorate and any ad hoc tasks as they emerge.

Regarding your request for names of civil servants working in the Constitutional Briefing Unit, an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to this information. The reason why this exemption applies is explained in the Annex of this letter.

The requested job titles are as follows:

• Briefing and Directorate Support Officer
• Briefing Officer (x2)
• Briefing, FOI and Risk Team Leader

Annex

Section 38(1)(b) - Personal information

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, e.g. names/contact details of individuals below Senior Civil Service grade, 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.