Publication - FOI/EIR release

COVID-19 guidance for universities, colleges and student accommodation: FOI release

Published: 5 November 2020
Topic: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland, Education, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202000092295
Date received: 29 September 2020
Date responded: 3 November 2020

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

Information requested

“At the end of August 2020, the Scottish government distributed a draft document, entitled 'Coronavirus (Covid-19): Guidance for universities, colleges and student accommodation providers' to interested parties, to gather their comments, before the finished guidance was published on September 1.

On the printed page, the document is marked "V1.0", dated "30/8" and under "summary of changes", states "addition of version control table / Updating as per FM suggestions / Further addition of material from college guidance / Amending face covering section in response to union feedback and to include section on accommodation rules" . Under a column header marked "Who" the initials "CB" have been written.
I would like to receive all responses to this draft document, including responses from ministers, individual universities, Universities Scotland, trades unions, and all other interested parties.“

Response

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested in the attached Annex A-D.

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, contact details, and other identifiable information, 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.

Where reasonably practicable I have provided the correspondence in its original format, however for some documents the text has been extracted from its original format to assist with the redaction of information. There is no alteration to the content of the original text, except those redactions.

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