Scottish NHS Board Chairs by gender or self-identified as LGBT: FOI release
- Published
- 6 February 2019
- Directorate
- People Directorate
- Topic
- Equality and rights, Public sector
- FOI reference
- FOI/19/00025
- Date received
- 2 January 2019
- Date responded
- 29 January 2019
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
Information requested
Details on the numbers of Board Chairs of Scottish NHS Boards by gender, those who had identified themselves as LGBT, along with whether they had previously held a position on the Board to which they were appointed as Chair. You also asked for information on the recent Chair vacancies and appointments made to the Boards of NHS Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Grampian, Tayside, Western Isles and the State Hospitals Board, a breakdown by gender and those who had identified themselves as LGBT.
Response
1. In answer to your question on the Chairs of Scottish NHS Boards, as at 2 January 2019 there were seven female Board Chairs and fifteen male Board Chairs. Of these, seven Board Chairs had previously held a position on the board of the NHS Board to which they were appointed as Chair.
2. In relation to the recent Board Chair vacancies (NHS Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Grampian, Tayside, Western Isles and the State Hospital Board) the data as at 2 January 2019 is as follows:
| Number of applications received |
Gender of Applicants |
Interview Stage |
Appointed |
|||
|
|
Male |
Female |
Male |
Female |
Male |
Female |
| 14 |
7 |
7 |
6 |
7 |
0 |
1 |
As at 2 January 2019 the appointments of the Chairs of NHS Western Isles and NHS Dumfries and Galloway were to be announced shortly. The appointment of the Chair for the State Hospital has yet to be confirmed. Announcements are made on the News section of the Appointed for Scotland website http://www.appointed-for-scotland.org/news/ .
The Chair appointments for NHS Borders and NHS Tayside will be re-advertised in due course, on the Current Appointments section of the Appointed for Scotland website https://applications.appointed-for-scotland.org/Default.aspx .
3. Of those appointed to the Boards listed at paragraph 2, the person appointed was already a member of the Board concerned.
4. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide the information you have requested on those who have identified themselves as LGBT because an exemption under section 38 (1) (b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to this information. The reason why this exemption applies is explained in the Annex to this letter.
ANNEX
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION
An exemption applies
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, ie sexuality of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. 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.
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.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
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