FM attendance at the Hunter Charity Foundation event: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/01237
Date received: 2 June 2017
Date responded: 11 July 2017

Information requested

You have requested whether the First Minister or indeed any other members of the ministerial team or Scottish Government staff were in attendance at the Hunter Foundation Charity event? If so, who attended?

Furthermore, if they attended as the guests of other attendees, please confirm which people or organisations provided hospitality to the Scottish Government staff or minsters who attended, and how much this was judged to be worth.

If the Scottish Government paid any costs incurred as a result of staff or ministers attending this event, please also supply details. This could include subsistence, transport and accommodation costs.

Response

The First Minister attended the Hunter Foundation Charity dinner in her capacity as the First Minister of Scotland. The First Minister was a guest of Sir Tom Hunter and therefore no cost was associated with the First Ministers attendance.

Other members of the Ministerial Team that were in attendance and the organisations that provided the hospitality are detailed below. An exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to the information requested in respect of costs of declared gifts for the event in question because we intend to publish that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request. We consider that it is reasonable to withhold the information until that date, rather than release this routinely published information before the planned publication date. I have however included a link that will direct you to this information when uploaded.

Scottish Ministers in attendance;

NAME	TITLE	TABLE
John Swinney	Deputy First Minister	Sir Tom Hunter
Derek Mackay	Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Constitution	Marie Macklin
Fiona Hyslop	Cabinet Secretary for Culture Tourism and External Affairs	Diageo
Michael Russell	Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland's Place in Europe	Marie Macklin

parliament.scot/msps/register-of-interests.aspx

In relation to the attendance of Scottish Government staff an exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to the information requested because we intend to publish that information within 12 weeks of the date of your request save for the attendance of one non SCS official who attended at the invitation of Social Investment Scotland. We consider that it is reasonable to withhold the information until that date, rather than release routinely published information before the planned publication date. I have however included a link that will direct you to this information when uploaded.

/publications/executive-board-gifts-and-hospitality-january-to-march-2017/

Since 1 April 2008 it has been the responsibility of individual staff to record any gifts/hospitality they receive with an estimated retail value of £15 or more in the case management section of the e-HR self-serve facility. All of the invitations above are estimated to have a value of "over £30". The cost to the Scottish Government for officials' travel was £7.65.

Reasons for not providing information

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to the name of the non-SCS staff member as disclosure would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. 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