Publication - FOI/EIR release

Diary of Special Adviser Stuart Nicolson supporting FM: FOI release

Published: 18 July 2017
Directorate: Communications and Ministerial Support Directorate
Topic: Public sector

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

FOI reference: FOI/17/01355
Date received: 14 June 2017
Date responded: 12 July 2017

Information requested

A copy of the diary Scottish Government Special Adviser, Stuart Nicolson.
A copy of any pre-meeting briefing, all people in attendance, agenda for meeting, note or minute taken and/or all action points from the meeting and any post meeting briefing from any of the meetings that this Special Adviser participated in.

Response

Having searched our paper and electronic records, the documents applicable to your request held by the Scottish Government are attached in separate pdf documents.

In relation to the dates 18th/19th April 2017, Stuart was supporting the First Minister on those days and all diary entries relate to this. This information will be published on the Scottish Government website at /publications/. Likewise, meetings with newspaper and media proprietors, editors and senior executives since the end of March 2017 will be published at the same address. In this instance an exemption under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to this information. This exemption applies because we intend to publish the 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 part of the routinely published information before the planned publication date.

As the exemption is conditional we have applied the 'public interest test'. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, 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. We recognise that there is public interest in the work of the Scottish Government, however, as we regularly publish lists of engagements carried out by Scottish Government Ministers onto the Scottish Government website, this will be met by our planned publication. In the meantime, there is a greater public interest in ensuring the information is published as planned. Also, we see no public interest in disrupting our programme of work to release the information ahead of the intended publication date.

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.38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information.

No further information applicable to your request is held by the Scottish Government.

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