Publication - FOI/EIR release

Minutes and communications for GIRFEC meeting 23/11/2012: FOI release

Published: 1 August 2018
Directorate: Children and Families Directorate
Topic: Children and families, Education, Public sector

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

FOI reference: FOI/18/01813
Date received: 3 July 2018
Date responded: 31 July 2018

Information requested

This FOI request relates to minutes of the GIRFEC programme board meeting held on 27 November 2012, in particular to the section under the heading 'Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)', and subsequent action points. See: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0043/00430746.pdf

Please provide the minutes of, and all internal and external communications relating to, the meeting that took place on 23 November 2012 between "Ken MacDonald, some Board members, GIRFEC officials and information specialists".

Please also provide the following information in relation to the progress/completion of action points arising, which were undertaken between November 2012 and May 2013:

(a) a copy of the "GIRFEC team's statement to encourage shift and Alan Small information shift" as referred to in the action points;
(b) copies of communications, minutes and any other records relating to the "joint work between ICO and GIRFEC on consent guidance"; and
(c) details of "Alan Small's examples to give reassurance".

Response

The meeting referred to in your request between the Information Commissioners Office and Getting it right for every child was an informal meeting which took place in Victoria Quay. The meeting's purpose was to discuss the current barriers to early intervention best practice and the principles of consent being applied where concerns are as a result of a third party. The agenda and discussion paper are attached and were created by Scottish Government officials as materials to support discussion at this meeting, and are not a statement of Scottish Government policy.

(a) a copy of the "GIRFEC team's statement to encourage shift and Alan Small information shift" as referred to in the action points;

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Extensive searches of our systems have been undertaken and no formal record of this has been located. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

(b) copies of communications, minutes and any other records relating to the "joint work between ICO and GIRFEC on consent guidance"; and

Attachment A is the agenda of the meeting on 23rd November 2012.

Attachment B is the Scottish Government's discussion paper for this meeting with Information Commissioner's Office.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

You may wish to be aware that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), rather than the Scottish Government, chose to issue an independent statement to local authorities, health boards and Police Scotland on 28 March 2013, titled "Information Sharing Between Services in Respect of Children and Young People" (provided in Annex C). To be clear, this advice was not authored by the Scottish Government.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names/contact details of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998.

About FOI

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