Russia, Israel & Hamas correspondence and cancelled visit to Whitevale surgery: FOI release

Information requested

1. All correspondence sent and received by the Scottish Government from the Russian Government or Russian embassies or from a Russian email address, between January 1 2023 and the date of this FOI.

2. All the correspondence sent and received by the Scottish Government, including internal correspondence and briefings prepared for ministers, about the Israel-Hamas conflict between October 1 2023 and the date of this FOI.

3. What planning has the Government put in place for the housing and medical treatment of Palestinians following Humza Yousaf's SNP conference speech about bringing displaced Palestinians to Scotland?

4. All the correspondence sent and received by the Scottish Government, including internal correspondence and briefings prepared for ministers, about Michael Matheson cancelling a visit to Whitevale surgery in Dennistoun, Glasgow, on Thursday November 16, between November 1 2023 and the date of this FOI.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested as attachments in the case where these documents were found to be in scope of your requests. Other information is provided in the course of this response that answers your questions or provides information on why information or documents cannot be provided where applicable. As your request was split into four questions, I have also split the response into sections for clarity.

The information attached relates to each question as set out in the following table:

Question	Document number
Q1.	Q1 - D1.
Q2.	None
Q3.	Q3 -D1.
Q4.	Q4-D1 to Q4-D29

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 various exemptions apply, specifically under sections s.38(1)(b) (personal information),30(b) Free and frank provision of advice or exchange of views, 29 (1)(a) Formulation or development of government policy and section . The reasons why these exemptions apply are explained below for each of your questions.

Question 1.

One document was identified as in scope of this request. 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 various exemptions apply, specifically under sections s.38(1)(b) (personal information).

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, ie names 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.

Question 2.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government.

You could provide a more specific element of the subject matter of the correspondence you are interested in, provide a narrower date range or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted.

Under Section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

Question 3.

The Scottish Government has undertaken some initial scoping work to consider the implications of a UK resettlement scheme that would enable refugees from Gaza to come to Scotland. An advice note for the Minister of Equalities, Migration and Refugees that addresses some initial considerations was recently released in response to FOI 202300381931 and is attached for information.

This was partially redacted as some of the information is exempted under sections 29 (1)(a) Formulation or development of government policy and section 30(b) Free and frank provision of advice or exchange of views. The reason section 29(1)(a) applies to this information is because the information relates to the formulation and development of government policy. The reason section 30(b) applies to the information requested is because disclosure of information would, or would be likely to, inhibit substantially the 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in release because of interest in the Scottish Government's proposal to support refugees from Israel/Gaza. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in allowing for the efficient and considered formulation and development of government policy.

Question 4.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested regarding point 4. 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 exemptions under sections 30 Prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs, 29 Formulation of Scottish Administration policy and 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to that information. The reasons why those exemptions apply are some of the briefing and correspondence contained information relating to: formulation of policy, personal details and Ministerial communications.

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 202300385780 - Information released - Annex

File type

100 page PDF

File size

1.7 MB