Horizon Post Office documentation: FOI release

Information requested

1. Could you supply documentation held about the Horizon Post Office scandal, limited to minutes/notes from meetings and email correspondence between April 30 2024 and July 1 2024.

2. Correspondence, limited to minutes/notes from meetings and emails between the Scottish Government and the Post Office about the Horizon Post Office scandal between April 30 2024 and July 1 2024.

3. Correspondence held, limited to notes/minutes from meetings and emails between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission about the Horizon Post Office scandal, between April 30 2024 and July 1 2024.

Response

Question 1

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that our searches have identified that a large number of documents fall within the scope of your request, spanning a lengthy time period, and it would take significant time to locate them and prepare them for release. 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 restrict your request to a specific date range, or to documents sent to or between specific people, as this would reduce the number of documents that fell within scope. 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

Question 2

I attach at Annex A a copy of email correspondence between Scottish Government and the Post Office about the Horizon Post Office scandal between April 30 2024 and July 1 2024.

Question 3

I attach at Annex B a copy of email correspondence and a note of meeting between Scottish Government and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission between April 30 2024 and 1 July 2024.

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 exemption under ,section.38(1)(b) (personal information) of FOISA applies to some of the information requested 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.

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 202400428671 - Information Released - Annex A

File type

5 page PDF

File size

667.7 kB

FOI 202400428671 - Information Released - Annex B

File type

18 page PDF

File size

985.7 kB