Communications mentioning specific MSPs: FOI release

Information requested

All mentions of 22 MSPs in Scottish Government documents and communications since the 1st January.

Response

Please note we have interpreted your request to mean from the 1st January 2024 and for “mentions” we have interpreted this to mean any document or communication where the relevant person was noted in the body of the document/communication, subject line or within email chains.

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 to locate and retrieve that information we would need to conduct a search of all of the records of the Scottish Government.

Under Section 12, exceeding the cost limit, 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.

For further information, it may help if I explain that we file our information according to the subject matter, not by reference to the names of individuals. Therefore our searches for the relevant person would also bring up all documents and communications recorded where the relevant person was included in any form (such as a recipient or sender of correspondence or a mention in document that we may hold). In addition, our eRDM search system will seek all the keywords and terms that we search for and aim to find them in any document or correspondence saved. For example, it is possible that a single email mentioning or including a named individual, may spawn several other email chains, as the discussions evolve, therefore generating multiple documents that are still technically in scope of your request because they continue to retain said mention.

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 specify the subject matter(s) . topics of the individuals being sought you are interested in or restrict your request to a specific business area of the Scottish Government, as this would allow us to limit the searches that would require to be conducted. 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.

In addition, please note that the use of the word “mentions”, we have interpreted to involve the search for every piece of information where the subject is included. Depending on the role of said subject, even within short periods of time, can raise excessive numbers of documents/communications still exceeding the cost limit (i.e. media briefings). This means without a more specific request for information, preferably noting specific timeframes and specific topics the cost limit may still be exceeded. This is also why trying to obtain all recorded mentions would require contacting all members of the Scottish Government to provide an accurate reflection of the possible number of ‘mentions’ in SG correspondence.

Out with the FOI(S)A response, in order to provide some information to assist you with your request please find the results for the named individuals from searches carried out in our main eRDM system. As established above this figure may include correspondence and documentation where they were included rather than just being mentioned, without a deeper dive into each and every document we would be unable to determine a fully reflective figure of what you are seeking.

Name	Search results
Anas Sarwar	1820
Jackie Baillie	3737
Clair Baker	3376
Neil Bibby	1335
Sarah Boyack	1127
Foysol Choudhury	874
Katy Clark	7325
Pam Duncan-Glancy	793
Rhoda Grant	2428
Mark Griffin	5378
Daniel Johnson	4895
Monica Lennon	1882
Richard Leonard	3609
Michael Marra	1111
Pauline McNeill	1949
Carol Mochan	864
Paul O’Kane	2789
Alex Rowley	2305
Colin Smyth	2413
Paul Sweeney	2898
Mercedes Villalba	500
Martin Whitfield	1429

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.