NHS Lothian closures: EIR release

Information requested

1. All correspondence to and from the Scottish Government that relates to or references the closure of any NHS Lothian sites because of risk of the buildings containing potentially dangerous materials in the past year.
2. All correspondence to and from the Scottish Government that relates to or references concrete or the use of dangerous building materials in the construction of any NHS Lothian sites in the past year.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

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, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response to your request

I have provided a response to each of your questions separately.

Question 1

The correspondence we have on record relates to Parliamentary Questions, therefore all of the information you have requested is available from Questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

To assist you in finding this information, the reference number for the Parliamentary Question relating to closures of public buildings due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete is S6W-19686.

Question 2

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to all of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party 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 exception 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 exception.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reason why that exception applies is that all of the documents involve internal communications between officials.

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 for specific elements of the information.

We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, there is a greater public interest in high quality policy and decision-making, and in the properly considered implementation and development of policies and decisions. This means that Ministers and officials need to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications. Their candour in doing so will be affected by their assessment of whether the discussions on future and theoretical handling of requests will be disclosed in the near future, when it may undermine or constrain how we can handle future requests, reviews and appeals. Premature disclosure of this type of information could lead to a reduction in the comprehensiveness and frankness of such advice and views in the future, which would not be in the public interest.

However, we recognise that there is some public interest in the topic of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and other dangerous building materials used in public buildings. Therefore the factual material contained in the internal communications has been provided. Redactions relate to internal communications, personal information or material outwith the scope of the request.

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 202300372652 - Information for Release - Annex

File type

13 page PDF

File size

658.6 kB