Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise trip to Dubai: FOI release

Information requested

1) For Ivan McKee's visit to Dubai in March, a breakdown of his expenses, including accommodation location and transport.

2) Any minutes from any meeting he attended during that period, including his itinerary for the trip.

Response

In response to part 1 of your request the detail requested is exempt from this response relevant to section 25(1) of FOISA, where we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. In this instance, the information is already publicly available through the Scottish Government website via the following https://www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-traveland-gifts/.

In response to part 2 of your request I can confirm that having completed a search of all relevant documents retained by Scottish Government in relation to the Minister's trip to Dubai in March 2022. I attach a copy of a document that is in scope for partial release. While our aim is to provide information wherever possible, in this instance certain information has been redacted under the following sections of FOISA - Section 33(1)b and Section 38(1)b detailed as follows:

Section 33(1)(b) – Commercial Interest and the Economy
An exemption under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested because it is likely to prejudice substantially the commercial interests of the company and the Scottish Government as an interested party. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking into 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 as whilst we recognise that there is some public interest in full transparency in this case this is outweighed by the public interest in not releasing this information as details of these discussions centre around ongoing work that is neither concluded or confirmed nor in the public domain so releasing in these circumstances would present significant risks to the commercial interests of the company. The information redacted under this exemption is marked accordingly to ensure clarity.

Section 38(1)(b) – Personal data
This exemption applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details, 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. The information redacted under this exemption is marked to ensure clarity.

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 202200322004 - Information Released - Annex

File type

13 page PDF

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532.9 kB