Standing Committee on Structural Safety: EIR release

Information requested

Please provide me with a copy of any document which mentions the Standing Committee on Structural Safety Alert and Guidance on “FAILURE OF REINFORCED AUTOCLAVED AERATED CONCRETE (RAAC) PLANKS” between May 2019 and February 2023.

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.

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

Some of the information you have requested is available online or has been issued to you as part of your FOI review issued on 4 October 2023 as set out below:

• NHS National Services Scotland Safety Action Notice SAN 2023: https://www.nss.nhs.scot/media/4011/san2302.pdf
• Freedom of Information Request 202300369638 Appendix B Document 4.

The remainder of the information has been attached separately as follows in annex:

• Annex A – NHS Update Meeting Paper for Ministerial Working Group on Building and Fire Safetyv(December 2022 but rescheduled for January 2023)
• Annex B – Slightly amended NHS Update Meeting Paper for Ministerial Working Group on Building andvFire Safety (December 2022 but rescheduled for January 2023)
• Annex C – July 2022 email from a Scottish Government official to Fife Council and Falkirk Council
• Annex D – Meeting paper for a Structural-Safety Group meeting that took place in May 2020 that a Scottish Government official was invited to
• Annex E – Meeting paper for a Structural-Safety Group meeting that took place in May 2020 that a Scottish Government official was invited to

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(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

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 exceptions: 11(2) (personal data), 10(4)(d) (material in the course of completion) and 10(5)(e) (confidentiality of commercial or industrial information) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why that exception(s) applies are explained later in this letter.

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 202300374485 - Information Released - Annex A-E

File type

33 page PDF

File size

1.1 MB