Records relating to Glasgow Caledonian University’s Postgraduate Diploma in Non-Surgical Medical Aesthetics Practice: FOI release

Information requested

Scottish Government records relating to Glasgow Caledonian University’s Postgraduate Diploma in Non-Surgical Medical Aesthetics Practice, announced on or around 18 March 2026.

Correspondence between the Scottish Government and Glasgow Caledonian University and/or various named individuals concerning the course and for records to demonstrate the Scottish Government’s awareness of or connection to this course.

Response

I enclose a copy of the records I was able to find which matched the description of your request. As you will see from the documents released in response to your request the Scottish Government has had only limited engagement with Glasgow Caledonian University, centred around a meeting held in December 2024, and a further meeting in May 2026. The latter meeting was held at the Scottish Government’s request after the course came to the attention of officials through correspondence associated with the passage of the Non-surgical Procedures and Functions of Medical Reviewers (Scotland) Act 2026. This meeting took place on 13 May 2026 which is out of scope for your request (which referred to information held until the date of that request 12 May 2026, see further comment below).

Because the Scottish Government has had only limited engagement with Glasgow Caledonian University, the Scottish Government does not hold material of all of the descriptions outlined in your request. I wish to take the opportunity to reassure you that I have undertaken a variety of relevant searches to identify material of the nature you have described. Insofar as the material released does not meet a description in your request please consider this a formal notice, under Section 17(1) of FOISA that this material is not held.

The information released in respect of this request is as follows:

• Annex A: Information concerning a meeting held between GCU and SG officials on 16 December 2024. N.b. No note of this meeting or follow up exchanges by email have been found.
• Annex B: Information concerning the GCU course announcement, including correspondence referring to this course, and some internal exchanges concerning this course. The internal exchanges are provided insofar as they constitute records pertinent to the question (amongst other parts of the request) of “whether Scottish Government officials or ministers were aware before 18 March 2026 that the programme was being developed or would be announced.”
• Annex C: Exchanges between SG officials and GCU setting up a meeting to discuss, and the calendar entry issued for that meeting.

As indicated above the meeting held on 13 May 2026, and any follow up material is not in scope of this request, but exchanges setting up that meeting are. In the Scottish Government’s approach to handling FoI it is not usually considered appropriate to provide additional material that has not been requested. However, exceptionally, I have also included some material as Annex D. This material includes a note of the meeting, and follow up exchanges. In considering whether to release this additional information I considered the following:

• This information is extremely pertinent to the apparent intention of the request.
• This information would be releasable in the event that you or another requester were to submit a further FoI request at a future date.
• Providing this information may help further contextualise the information that is in scope.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exemption under Section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies. This relates to personal information, and as such redactions have been applied clearly identifying the reason for the redaction. Wherever possible contextual information (such as the domain of email addresses has been retained to assist understanding of the exchanges).

As Annex D is not released under the provisions of FOISA there is no need to apply exemptions to this information. I have redacted information in these exchanges relevant to personal information – taking a similar approach to that taken in Annexes A-C, and providing the same information as I consider would have been released had your request been made at a later juncture.

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 202600516504 - Information released - Annex

File type

PDF

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10.5 MB