Meetings in relation to Edinburgh Zoo pandas: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/01399
Date received: 21 June 2017
Date responded: 10 July 2017

Information requested

All correspondence and information including but not limited to documents, reports, calls logged, notes of meetings and emails between the Scottish Government and the Chinese government in relation to the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo. I am looking for the information for dates starting January 2015 up until today's date (21/06/2017) or more recent.

All correspondence and information including but not limited to documents, reports, calls logged, notes of meetings and emails between the Scottish Government and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) in relation to the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo. I am looking for this information for dates starting January 2015 up until today's date (21/06/2017) or more recent.

Response

Request 1

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. We do not have the information because there are no records of correspondence or notes of meetings between the Scottish Government and the Chinese Government in relation to the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo between January 2015 and the present date. This is a formal notice under section 17 (1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

Request 2

Between January 2015 and the present date, the pandas were mentioned in three written exchanges between the Scottish Government and the Roayl Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS). Copies of these exchanges are attached, and are as follows:

Annex A – An invitation from Professor Chris West of RZSS to the First Minister, inviting her to attend two sessions of discussion on Giant Panda research at Edinburgh Zoo and the subsequent response from the First Minister's private office.

Annex B – Email correspondence in September 2016 between Scottish Government officials and the Director of the Giant Panda Programme at Edinburgh Zoo, Iain Valentine, in relation to the pandas.

Annex C – Email correspondence in June 2017 between the Scottish Government officials and the Director of the Giant Panda Programme at Edinburgh Zoo, Iain Valentine, in relation to the pandas.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details of individuals, and disclosing it 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. I have also redacted parts of the correspondence due to the subject matter being of no relevance to your enquiry.

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FOI-17-01399 supporting documents.pdf

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