Correspondence regarding the Cass Review or Cass Interim Report: FOI release

Information requested

Please provide any correspondence and/or meetings (date, attendees, agenda, minutes, notes) which reference the Cass Review or Cass Interim Report in Feb, March or April 2002.

We then confirmed with you and amended the dates to “Feb, March, April 2022" and you clarified correspondence to be, "I mean any written correspondence or communication".

Response

Please see below a copy of some of the information you requested.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Some of the information you have requested is available online. A recent parliamentary question on this topic can be found here: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/what-wassaid-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-28-04-2022?meeting=13715&iob=124454

The minutes of the National Gender Identity Healthcare Reference Group held on 13 April 2022, will be published here National Gender Identity Healthcare Reference Group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot.)

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested. This is because personal information such as phone numbers, staff names and email addresses were included in email trails and have been redacted.

An exemption under section 30(b)(i) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested. This is because early versions of media lines, press releases and parliamentary questions which differ from the final, cleared lines, are considered to be free and frank provision of advice.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. This is because releasing early versions of media responses, news releases and parliamentary questions could contain factually inaccurate information and therefore be misleading to the public.

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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-202200298034 - Information released

File type

6 page PDF

File size

805.7 kB