Correspondence regarding Former First Minister meetings and water charges: FOI release

Information requested

1. All correspondence sent and received by the Scottish Government, including internal, briefings, notes and minutes from meetings, about Humza Yousaf's appearance at the NFU conference in February 2024. Can you include all correspondence inviting him to the invite, plus briefings for him before and afterwards, between October 1 2023 and the date of this FOI.

2. All correspondence sent and received by the Scottish Government, including internal, briefings, notes and minutes from meetings, about Scottish Water's decision to increase water charges in 2024, from between October 1 2023 and the date of this FOI. Can you include details of when Scottish Water informed the government of its intention to increase charges?

3. All minutes, notes and briefings from Humza Yousaf's discussions with the new Northern Ireland First Minister this year.

4. All correspondence sent and received by the Scottish Government, including internal, briefings, notes and minutes from meetings, about Humza Yousaf's appearance at the Calcutta Cup rugby game between Scotland and England from between October 1 2023 and the date of this FOI.

Response

For Questions 1 and 2:

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 most of the information you requested in Question 1 and Question 2, as detailed in the specific numbered question attachments.

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 exceptions under regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications) and regulation 11 (2) (personal information) of the EIRs apply to that information. The reasons why that exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

For Question 3:

I enclose a copy of the information you have requested.

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 section 38(1)(b) (personal information) and under s.30(b)(i) (free and frank provision of advice) of FOISA apply.The reasons why that exemptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

For Question 4:

I enclose a copy of the information you have requested.

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 an exemption under section 38(1)(b) – personal information applies. The reasons why that exemption applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above.

If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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 202400402030 - Information released - Annex

File type

2 page PDF

File size

109.2 kB