Minutes of meeting with former Governor of the Bank of England: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request (202400412723)

You asked for I seek from you in hard copy or scanned/electronic copies of all notes or minutes of all meetings that took place with the former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney and involved any or all of the following: Alex Salmond, John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon and Kenny MacAskill.

In your review request you said:
"It is a matter of public record that meetings did take place in 2014 and so I seek the minutes or notes from each session."

Response

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed, with modifications.

The original decision interpreted your request as related to meetings with Mark Carney following his time as Governor of the Bank of England, as there was no timeframe mentioned in your request and your reference to the "Former Governor of the England". This should have been clarified with you before responding and I apologise for that oversight.

From your reference to meetings in 2014, I have judged your request to refer to meetings whilst Mark Carney was Governor of the Bank of England, from 1 July 2013 to 15 March 2020. I have therefore conducted a new search for information.

As a result of that search, I have identified a note of one call which took place in June 2016. I enclose a copy of this note in the format you asked for.

A small amount of information has been redacted from the note because an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to the names and contact details of junior officials. 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.

I acknowledge that additional meetings between the parties referenced in your request may have taken place, indeed some of these are published as part of our Ministerial Engagements, Travel and Gifts publication (https://www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-travel-and-gifts/). You will note relevant meetings in January 2020, September 2016, and July 2016. However, having undertaken extensive searches I have not identified any further notes or minutes in relation to these meetings, or any other meetings confirmed to have taken place prior to 2016. I have therefore concluded that we were entitled to refuse your request under section 17(1) of FOISA in relation to notes or minutes of these further meetings.

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 202400417280 - Information Released - Annex

File type

1 page PDF

File size

167.4 kB