Information held relating to Tom Arthur MSP meeting with Costa Coffee: EIR release

Information requested

All recorded information held by the Scottish Government, relating to Tom Arthur MSP’s, then Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, meeting with Costa Coffee on 26 January 2023.

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response

I enclose a number of documents that satisfy your request. 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 exception applies. The exception and reason for applying is found below.

The documents which satisfy your request are

1. The initial email from Costa Coffee to the Minister;
2. Letter from Costa Coffee to the Minister;
3. Automated email response to letter;
4. Response to letter accepting the meeting request;
5. Briefing document provided to the Minister prior to the meeting;
6. Minister confirming content with the minute of the meeting;
7. Note of meeting, and;
8. Post-meeting exchange between Costa Coffee and SG officials.

For ease of access, these have been consolidated into a singular document. I hope you find the information provided useful.

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

An exception applies

While it is the Scottish Government’s aim to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we have had to withhold some of the information you have requested as an exception under Regulation 11(2) of the EIRs applies to documents 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

This exception has been applied as some of the information requested is personal data, such as the 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 exception 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.

Please note that there has also been information redacted in document 6 because some information found in this document is not within the scope of the request.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI - 202300353757 - Documents for release

File type

24 page PDF

File size

1.5 MB