Economy Minister meetings with Fiona Duncan, The Promise Scotland: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request 202300380846

Details of the meeting that took place between then Economy Minister Kate Forbes and Fiona Duncan, the Promise Scotland, on the 16th September 2021. This should include the agenda, any papers/briefings provided to the Minister to help prepare for the meeting, any papers used and discussed during the meeting and the note/minute taken from the meeting.

Response

I have now completed my review of our failure to respond to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for:

“Details of the meeting that took place between then Economy Minister Kate Forbes and Fiona Duncan, the Promise Scotland, on the 16th September 2021. This should include the agenda, any papers/briefings provided to the Minister to help prepare for the meeting, any papers used and discussed during the meeting and the note/minute taken from the meeting.”

I have concluded that a new decision should be substituted.

In conducting my review, I have identified that in addition to the note of the meeting disclosed to you, a briefing paper was previously withheld in full under section 30(b)(i) of FOISA. I have considered the withheld information in this case afresh, and I have concluded that this briefing paper should have been provided to you in response to your request, with some exemptions applied under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) FOISA. This is attached separately to my letter.

I am also satisfied that an exemption under section 38(1)(b) would continue to apply to the information previously withheld in the note of the meeting, and that this exemption applies to the names of junior officials that have been withheld from the information now being disclosed, for the reasons set out in our initial response.

I have also reviewed the searches undertaken to identify the held information which would fall within the scope of your request and I am satisfied that these searches were sufficient to have identified all of the information held. For clarity, I can also confirm that all of the papers held in relation to your request have now been provided, and that the minute of the meeting previously provided is the minute of the meeting that is held on record.

I have therefore concluded that our initial response should have confirmed that the Scottish Government does not hold an agenda for this meeting or recorded information confirming whether any specific papers were used and/or discussed during the meeting. This is therefore a formal notice under section 17(1) that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

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 202300385826 - Information released - Annex

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7 page PDF

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200.5 kB