Former First Minister's speech at Glasgow University: FOI release

Information requested

1. Details of how many Scottish Government staff worked on Humza Yousaf's speech at Glasgow University on January 8, 2024 (Scottish independence: industrial policy).

2. Details of anyone outwith the Scottish Government involved in the writing of the speech or the number of people from outwith the Scottish Government who were involved.

3. All correspondence relating to the speech held by the Scottish Government.

4. The final draft of the speech as agreed by government staff and presented to Mr Yousaf.

5. A detailed breakdown of how Mr Yousaf's figure of Scots households being £10,200 better off after independence was calculated.

6. Any details, if they exist, of concerns raised about the political nature of the speech given it was presented in Mr Yousaf's role as First Minister.

Response

Part 1

Details of how many Scottish Government staff worked on Humza Yousaf's speech at Glasgow University on January 8, 2024 (Scottish independence: industrial policy).

I am unable to provide you with a figure for the total number of staff who contributed to the economy speech delivered on January 8th, because in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded because there is no business need to do this. This is a formal notice under Section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

Outwith FOISA, I can provide the following list of divisions that had staff who were involved in the creation of the speech:

• Constitutional Futures Division
• Trade Policy Division
• Export and Inward Investment Division
• Fiscal Policy and Constitution
• Energy Industries

Part 2

Details of anyone outwith the Scottish Government involved in the writing of the speech or the number of people from outwith the Scottish Government who were involved.

There were no external individuals involved in the writing of the economy speech.

This is a formal notice under Section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

Part 3

All correspondence relating to the speech held by the Scottish government.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating and retrieving every item of correspondence relating to the economy speech would exceed the upper cost limit of £600.

While you have limited your request to one topic, there is a significant volume of material held by the Scottish Government relating to the economy speech.

Outwith FOISA, we would offer the following as an example of the volume of information held. A search of one staff member’s mailbox, involved in the creation of the speech and arrangements for its delivery, returned over 1000 items of information.

Any staff member involved in the writing of or support relating to the speech would need to search their personal mailboxes for any correspondence relating to the speech and it is expected that a number of staff members could have hundreds of items of correspondence.

The time and cost to search and review all materials would exceed the £600 cost limit. 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, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. For example, you could specify a particular area or aspect of the speech that you are interested in, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. 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.

Part 4

The final draft of the speech as agreed by government staff and presented to Mr Yousaf.

The final version of the speech sent by officials to the First Minister can be found in Annex A of this document.

Also included within Annex A is an extract of an email that was sent with the speech, advising that political content was included within the speech by Special Advisers, working on behalf of the First Minister. The First Minister then made additional changes, prior to delivery of the speech. The text of the speech published on gov.scot reflects those changes, with any political content redacted.

Part 5

A detailed breakdown of how Mr Yousaf's figure of Scots households being £10,200 better off after independence was calculated.

An explanation of the £10,200 figure included in the First Minister’s speech can be found in Annex B of this document.

Part 6

Any details, if they exist, of concerns raised about the political nature of the speech given it was presented in Mr Yousaf's role as First Minister.

Extracts from emails touching on the political nature of elements of the speech, can be found in Annex C.

Outwith FOISA, to provide helpful context, additional materials provided in Annex C are email extracts showing the Scottish Government policy of removing political content when publishing documents on gov.scot.

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) (Personal Information) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested. This is 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 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.

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 202400392532 - Information released - Annex A - Annex C

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22 page PDF

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