Number of freedom of information (FOI) responses issued in October 2018: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/03174
Date received: 30 October 2018
Date responded: 12 November 2018

 

Information requested

You asked for:

“Please release the following information.

1. How many FOI responses has the Scottish Government issued between 1/10/18 and 30/10/18 (inclusive)?
2. Of these, how many were subject to exemptions where the 'public interest test' applies?
3. In how many of those cases did the government decide that, although an exemption did apply, the public interest test favoured greater disclosure (with the material therefore released)?”

Response

1. Between 1 October 2018 and 30 October 2018 (inclusive) the Scottish Government responded to 434 FOI requests. It should be noted that this figure incorporates responses issued under the regimes of both FOISA and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs).

2. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Our case management system records information about exemptions where consideration of the public interest (PI) test has resulted in information being withheld, either wholly or in part. However, it does not record information regarding cases where the PI test applies but the decision was in favour of disclosure as there is no requirement under FOISA for this information to be recorded, and we have no business requirement to do so.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.  

It might be useful to note that between 1 October 2018 and 30 October 2018, 85 of the 434 cases we responded to had the PI test applied but favoured withholding information (63 of these resulted in withholding some information, and 22 resulted in withholding all information). A further breakdown of how FOI requests were responded to within this period is shown in the table below:

Reponse Decision	Number of cases
Full disclosure	153
Partial disclosure	115
No information released (reasons include upper cost limit applies, information not held, and all absolute and qualified exemptions)	164
Request invalid	2
Total	434

3. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. As noted above, our case management system does not record information regarding cases where the PI test applies but the decision was in favour of disclosure. 

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.