Correspondence concerning First Minister meetings in August 2020: FOI release
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
Information requested
1) For the month of August, a list of any meetings involving the First Minister not listed on the information published here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/ministerial-engagements-travel-andgifts-august-2020/ which was considered to include the discussion of government business.
2) For all of the meetings in August, including those requested above and published at the above link, please provide a list of attendees, a location, a time, and whether it was in person, virtual, or over the phone.
3) For those meetings, please confirm whether a) minutes were taken, b) notes were taken, c) an agenda was circulated, d) handouts were circulated, e) briefing notes were sent following the meeting, by any member of the First Minister's office or by the First Minister herself.
Response
The information you have requested is attached in Annex A. For the daily briefings, the attendees included the relevant Cabinet Secretary, CMO, NCD or CNO, depending on who was taking part in the daily press briefing later that day. The location of all meetings/calls was either St Andrew's House or the Scottish Parliament.
In line with standard practice, any handwritten notes or minutes are not retained by the Private Office and any comments or actions are emailed to officials and then destroyed. It may be helpful to explain that Ministerial Mailboxes are primarily transactional – managing incoming and outgoing emails.
The number of items and size (in GBs) of Ministerial mailboxes are monitored, and retaining emails for a maximum of three months is a key part of ensuring mailbox size remains below the level where the number of items and size of box starts to impact on mailbox functionality. Any emails and documents which form part of the official record are filed in the Scottish Government electronic Records Management System (eRDM), by the relevant policy area.
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
There is a problem
Thanks for your feedback