Scottish business awards dinner in Ladykirk House: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00780
Date received: 13 December 2017
Date responded: 13 March 2018

Information requested

Details of who purchased dinner with the FM and the Deputy First Minister at the Scottish Business Awards on 17 November. You have also requested whether a Ministerial car that travelled to or from Ladykirk House on 27 April 2017, visited Frognal House in Monkton; who was in attendance at the dinner in Ladykirk House; if Colin or Christine Weir were in attendance at the dinner in Ladykirk House or if the First Minister or Deputy First Minister met with Colin and Christine Weir on the same day. Finally you requested all correspondence to do with the dinner held by the Scottish Government.

Response

I have now completed my review of our failure to respond to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA).

In accordance with section 21(4) of FOISA, I have also reached a decision on your request.

I have concluded that this delay was as a result of an administrative error. We received multiple requests on this topic all at the same time and your original request was overlooked. Please accept our sincere apologies for this error.

I can now provide our response to your original request. I have detailed below the answer to your original questions.

I enclose a copy of information (via email) held by the Scottish Government relating to your request.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to some of the information you have requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it (names/personal details) 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.

The dinner referred to was not hosted or organised by the Scottish Government. The dinner was an auction prize arranged by Josh Littlejohn (Social Bite) and donated by Martin Wishart to raise funds for charities involved in the Scottish Business Awards. The First Minister and the Deputy First Minister were asked by Josh to attend. As you will see from the documentation attached Sir Tom Hunter successfully bid for the dinner.

As such, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold details of the guests in attendance.

You may find it helpful to note that the guests we are aware of are; the First Minister, Deputy First Minister, Sir Tom Hunter and Martin Wishart who was the chef for the evening.

All ministerial engagements are proactively published online;

/publications/?term=Ministerial engagements&publicationTypes=transparency_data

The Ministerial car did not make any additional stops from what is outlined in the Ministerial car journey database, the link is copied below.

/publications/ministerial-engagements-travel-and-gifts-april-2017/

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Finally, I can also confirm that neither the First Minister or Deputy First Minister met with Colin and Christine Weir before or after the dinner.

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-18-00780 - related email correspondence.pdf

File type

3 page PDF

File size

110.8 kB