COVID-19 Documentation regarding enhanced masks in schools: FOI release

Information requested

“I would like the government to release material it holds related to consideration of the use of 'enhanced' masks (ie those that go beyond basic cloth or blue surgical masks, such as but not limited to N95 rated masks).

The material in question would include:

• Any briefings / analysis / options (either whole papers or sections of other documents) related to these enhanced masks being used in schools.

The time frame for this request is Sept 1 2020 to present.”

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, we are unable to provide a small amount of the information you have requested because an exemption under 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information 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 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.

To be as helpful as possible, information that is out of scope of your request has been removed.

You may find it useful to view the documentation published by COVID-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues. It can be found here.

In addition, the documentation published by the COVID-19 Education Recovery Group may also be of interest to you. It can be found here.

For publication purposes, please see the link below for Enclosure 1 of attached documents.

Mask use in the context of COVID-19: interim guidance, 1 December 2020 (who.int)

For all other documentstion, please see the Annex attached below.

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.

FOI - 202100167659 - Information Released - Annex

File type

41 page PDF

File size

2.9 MB