Freedom of Information Unit resourcing and staffing numbers: FOI release

Information requested

(1) The staffing of the central FOI team;

(2) The number of civil servants across the Scottish Government responsible for dealing with FOIs? specialist teams or staff devoted to this work? Central records of specialists kept? How many civil servants in Scottish Government have 'FOI' or 'Freedom of Information' or 'EIRs' or similar in their job titles, or lists of responsibilities?

(3) Analysis undertaken on the cost handling of individual FOI requests, review or appeal and the cost to the Scottish Government as a whole in meeting its legal duties under FOI/EIR law;

(4) The number of FOI requests rejected as vexatious along with reason for rejection of these requests from 2015 to present. Following FOI 202300371085 concerning the largest number of FOI requests made by a single requester in one day, please disclose any consideration given to whether FOI requests should be rejected as vexatious because of the sheer volume of simultaneous requests.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested in the format you asked for.

(1) Staffing of FOI team
The Scottish Government FOI Unit (FOIU) structure can be found at Annex A.

(2) Civil servants with FOI responsibilities
Colleagues from across the Scottish Government undertake a number of duties as Civil Servants, including responding to FOI/EIR requests. All colleagues may be expected to respond to FOI/EIR requests as part of their role.

Scottish Government has a central FOI Team that performs a number of functions around the FOI and EIR legislation, as well as providing support and advice to colleagues across the organisation with cases which they are dealing with. This team is made up of 25 posts (with 6 of these posts vacant at present). Please refer to the FOIU structure at Annex A for more information.

The Scottish Government is continuing to focus on a wider retinue of trained case handlers. There are currently around 1300 staff trained in FOI case-handling.

(3) Analysis undertaken on the cost handling of individual FOI requests, review or appeal
In this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. There is no business requirement for officials to record the time spent processing FOI requests as it would mean manually asking each person who is allocated a case, the time spent working on the FOI and any additional resources they may seek to assist them. Due to differences in complexity of cases, this figure would fluctuate significantly and make reporting on it difficult and as such would not be easily quantifiable. These tasks are also completed as part of their normal duties along with other tasks appropriate to their role as a civil servant. Given we do not hold details of the time spent by individuals undertaking these tasks we are unable to provide the total cost figure per calendar year or the median costs associated with our legal duty in answering FOI and EIR requests.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. However, it may be of interest to you to know that we did publish reports with estimated costs of responding to requests based on an exercise carried out in 2012 (link below). This was a costing exercise to provide an estimate of the amount of money associated with responding to requests. Subsequent reports after the 2012 exercise used this as the basis to form estimated costs in the years following this. These are just estimates and do not provide the detailed information requested as no costing exercises have been carried out since 2012. In addition to the 2012 report, I provide links below to the published reports from 2016 to 2019 with the request for estimated costs in dealing with responses.

• Information request handling: annual report 2012 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Information request handling: annual report 2016 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Information request handling: annual report 2017 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Information request handling: annual report 2018 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Information request handling: annual report 2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

(4) The number of FOI requests rejected as vexatious along with reason for rejection of these requests from 2015 to present
Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. This is because the data you seek from 2015 to 30 September 2023 is publicly available on the Scottish Commissioner’s website at FOI and EIRs statistics | Scottish Information Commissioner (itspublicknowledge.info). The information requested can be found listed under the section header statistics data, with the first table providing year on year comparisons from 2013 to 30 September 2023. The data for the Scottish Government can be found by applying a filter to Scottish Ministers.

For the period 1 October to 7 December 2023, no cases were refused on the grounds of being considered vexatious. I attach a copy of this report at Annex B.

FOI 202300371085
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. I can confirm that consideration has not been given as to whether FOI requests should be rejected as vexatious due to the sheer volume of simultaneous requests from an individual. Each request is considered on its own merits. The Scottish Government complies with the Scottish Information Commissioner guidance on rejecting a request under section 14(1) of Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA.) This guidance can be found at: Briefings and guidance | Scottish Information Commissioner (itspublicknowledge.info).

Outwith FOISA
I note your comments about the provisions within FOI law regarding excessive cost. Your request states:

I thought it would be useful for me to set out upfront where I would argue the public interest lies in disclosure of the above four requests for information.

FOI legislation itself recognises through the "cost exceeded" exception the public interest in managing the overall cost of handling FOI requests. The taxpayer ultimately funds the processing of FOI requests, whether information is released or not. The "cost exceeded" exception is applied per request, not per requester. This limit can be changed. If changed, it would have to be changed on the basis of accurate analysis, and on the basis of judgment being applied to the question whether the benefits of disclosing information outweighs the cost to the public purse of administering the system. That is the proper subject of public debate, debate within civil society and Parliament, and consideration by the government.

As you may be aware, section 12(1) of FOISA provides that a Scottish public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the cost limit set in regulations. The relevant regulations are The Freedom of Information (Fees for Required Disclosure) (Scotland) Regulations 2004. These set a nominal ‘cost limit’ for requests under FOISA of £600. However, the regulations also cap the maximum hourly rate for staff time – irrespective of seniority or grade – at £15 per hour.

In most Scottish public authorities, staff costs do exceed £15 per hour regardless of staff member role, when the full costs of the individual’s employment are considered. The current £600 cost limit is functionally equivalent to 40 working hours of staff time for the vast majority of FOI cases. There may be exceptions where there are significant non-staff costs of responding (e.g., printing and postage costs) which contribute towards the total cost of compliance.

It should also be noted that the regulations allow only the costs of locating, retrieving, and providing information to be considered when calculating cost. Time taken by the authority to deliberate over decisions made in handling the request may not be included in the authority’s estimate of its cost.

The issue of the cost limit was considered in the Scottish Government’s recent consultation on Access to Information Rights in Scotland, following a recommendation by the former Public Audit and Postlegislative
Scrutiny Committee in 2020 that the Scottish Government should consult on replacing the £600 limit with a limit referring directly to the staff time required to handle any request. In its response to the consultation, published on 28 November 2023, the Scottish Government did not commit to this change, but acknowledged that there will be a need to update the Fees regulations at some point. The Scottish Government has indicated its intention that when the Fees regulations are updated, it would wish to maintain the cost limit as functionally equivalent to 40 working hours of staff time. A review or a decision to make any changes has yet to be made. Any change to the Fees Regulations would require the approval of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government’s response to the Access to Information Rights in Scotland consultation can be found on our website at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/access-information-rights-scotland-response-analysis-consultationresponses/.

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 202300388436 - Information Released - Annex A and B

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