MS Victoria contracts and plans: FOI release

Information requested

1. Please provide all correspondence within SG officials, ministers, Edinburgh City Council and all other agencies regarding the procurement, launch and operation of the above vessel.

2. Please provide all frameworks, plans and all other documentation for regulation, inspection and safeguarding of the ship and people and staff on it.

3. Please provide details of payments made and contract length to Edinburgh City Council and all other agencies regarding the above.

Response

1

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600.

There has been a large volume of correspondence regarding the procurement, launch and operation of the MS Victoria ship in recent months. We have calculated that searching, redacting and collating this information would require a significant amount of time to carry out. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12.

You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600 by specifying a more detailed matter. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx

2

I enclose copies of the documents you have requested. The Scottish Government (SG) and City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) have conducted a Joint Assurance Review to ensure all parties involved in operationalising the M/S Victoria are satisfied the ship, alongside the operational facilities and services to be offered, is fit for the purposes of homing Ukrainian Displaced Persons (UDPs) in this alternative welcome accommodation. There are two versions of the Joint Assurance Review included: the initial document that was used to inform the decision as to whether to use the ship, and another working document from the time at which this FOI request was made.

In this instance, an exemption under Section 38(1)(b) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details, 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.

3

No payments have been made to Edinburgh City Council regarding the MS Victoria passenger ship. The Scottish Government makes payments to Corporate Travel Management (CTM) to oversee management and cost of the ship, as well as other temporary accommodation bookings. The contract award notice to CTM is available to the public here.

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(s) under section(s) 33(1)(b) – Substantial prejudice to commercial interests of FOISA applies to that information.

Information is exempt under section 33(1)(b) if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the commercial interests of any person. “Person” includes a public authority, company and partnership. 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.

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 - 202200315064 - information released

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16 page PDF

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1.5 MB