Correspondence regarding Offensive Behaviour at Football Act: FOI release

Information requested

1. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received, including internally, briefings, minutes/notes from meetings and policy documents about or mention the offensive behaviour at football act, from the last six months?

2. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received, including internally, briefings, minutes/notes from meetings and policy documents about or mention Baillie Gifford, from the last two months?

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you 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 for reasons I have set out in detail below.

Request 1
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information provided because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details of individuals, 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.

You will also see a number of redactions under ‘not in scope’ within the released documents for question 1. Many of the documents containing the mention of or reference to the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act also cover a range of other topics and therefore have ‘not in scope’ redactions to ensure we are supplying the exact information requested in its clearest form. If you wish to request further information from those documents, an FOI request can be submitted.

Request 2
An exemption under section 12 of FOISA (excessive cost of compliance) applies to all of the information gathered in response to request 2. 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 under section 12. The reasons why this exemption applies are explained in Annex B to this letter.

The following annexes enclose the information requested and have been attached separately:

Annex A contains information relating to request (1), subject to the exemption under section 38(1)(b) as noted above.

Annex B contains our response to request (2), subject to the exemption under section 12 as noted above.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202400422615 - Information Released - Annex A and B

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