Publication - FOI/EIR release

Meetings of the Transport Minister in August 2022: FOI release

Published: 7 December 2023
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202200331302
Date received: 21 November 2022
Date responded: 7 February 2023

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Information requested

All internal and external correspondence within and sent or received by the Scottish Government including attached documents, meeting handouts, memos, briefings to ministers, attendee lists, location of meeting, notes, minutes, or OneNote memos, linked to the following meetings:

Jenny Gilruth's meeting with CMAL on August 2, 2022
Jenny Gilruth's meeting with stakeholders re: MV Hebrides
Jenny Gilruth's meeting RE: Uig Harbour on August 8, 2022
Jenny Gilruth's meetings with ScotRail on August 8 and August 17, 2022
Jenny Gilruth's meetings with stakeholders RE: Uig Closure on August 25, 2022.

Response

We have identified information within the scope of your request which is detailed in Annex B to this letter. Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because it is not within the scope of your request (redactions made to some documents) as per undernoted exemptions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2022 (FOISA) that apply:-

Exemption under section 29 (1a) – formulation of government policy
Exemption under section 17 - information not held
Exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information)

The reasons why these exemptions apply are explained in Annex A to this letter.

Attached are copies of documentation held in reference to your request as outlined below (Annex B).

CMAL Meeting 2 August 2022
Meeting with stakeholders re MV Hebrides
Meeting with Uig Harbour August 8 2022
Meeting with ScotRail on August 17 2022
Meeting with stakeholders re Uig closure on August 25, 2022

I can confirm that there is no record of a meeting with Jenny Gilruth and ScotRail on August 8 2022 as per your request and under Section 17 we do not hold the meeting note of 17 August 2022 with ScotRail.

ANNEX A
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION
Exemption under Section 29 (1a) – formulation of government policy. This exemption applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice our policy position and development there of. 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 in the formulation and development of our policy position.

Exemption under Section 17 - information not held.
Information not held cannot be provided – as stated above we do not hold the meeting note of 17 August 2022 with ScotRail.

Exemption under Section 38(1)(b) (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, ie names/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 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 http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.