Publication - FOI/EIR release

Tender documents for the contract involving HaskoningDHV in regards to Ferguson Marine: FOI release

Published: 21 December 2023
Directorate: Economic Development Directorate
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202200323021
Date received: 3 October 2022
Date responded: 13 January 2023

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

Information requested

Tender documents including the specification of work to be undertaken for the contract involving HaskoningDHV in regards to Ferguson Marine.

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested, however some of the information has been withheld since exemptions under section 33(1)(b) and section 38(1)(b) of FOISA apply to your request.

Section 33(1)(b)

An exemption under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested because it is likely to prejudice substantially the commercial interests of the companies involved. These matters concern information about ongoing trading companies operating in a highly competitive market - release of this information could benefit commercial competitors and prejudice the otherwise continued business operations of the companies.

In addition, this exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking into account all of 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.

Section 38(1)(b)

This exemption 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’, therefore we are not required to consider if public interest in disclosing the information outweighs public interest in applying the exemption.

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