The Global Dialogues project: EIR release

Information requested

1. How much has it cost the Scottish Government to help run/organise the Scottish Global Dialogues project, what was the government's role in it and breakdown of these costs?

2. All correspondence, including internal, between the Scottish Government and John Kerry/his office/his representatives, about his appearances in Scotland, between April 1 2023 and December 1 2023.

Can you also include all minutes/notes taken from his meetings with Humza Yousaf this year, and disclose whether a UK Government diplomat sat in on them?

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.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested 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 exception 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 exception.

An exception under regulation 10 (5)[a] of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception has been applied to correspondence that if released may cause prejudice to international relations.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release because of the high profile nature of this engagement. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in the Scottish Government's ability to effectively operate internationally.

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 202400396010 - Information released - Attachment

File type

25 page PDF

File size

371.7 kB