Meetings between the National Farmers Union (NFU) Scotland and the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands: EIR release

Information requested

1. How many times has a meeting taken place between NFU Scotland and Mairi Gougeon and or Jim Fairlie between December 2023 and December 2024?
2. Please can you share the dates and times of these meetings?
3. Between 2021 and December 2023 how many meetings took place between NFU Scotland and a member of the Scottish Government?
4. Please can you also share the dates and times of these meetings?

Response

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.

Q1 request: Please can I request the following information: (1)How many times has a meeting taken place between NFU Scotland and Mairi Gougeon and or Jim Fairlie between December 2023 and December 2024?

Q1 response: Ms Gougeon has had 8 meetings, with Mr Fairlie having had 13 meetings.

TABLE 1

The number of times a meeting has taken place between NFUS and Ms Gougeon between December 2023 and December 2024	8
Date	Time
08 February 2024	19:00
09 February 2024	09:30 – 10:30
23 May 2024	10:00 – 10:45
21 June 2024	10:15 – 10:35
29 July 2024	10:00 – 12:30
12 September 2024	10:45 – 11:30
28 November 2024	16:00 – 16:45
04 December 2024	15:30 – 15:50

TABLE 2

The number of times a meeting has taken place between NFUS and Mr Fairlie between December 2023 and December 2024	13
Date	Time
08 February 2024	19:00
09 February 2024	09:30 – 10:30
26 March 2024	10:00 – 10:30
22 April 2024	16:00
03 June 2024	12:15 - 12:45
20 June 2024	13:15 – 13:30
05 August 2024	10:45 – 12:30
31 August 2024	12:00 – 12:30
24 October 2024	10:00 – 11:15
01 November 2024	08:00 – 09:30
12 November 2024	10:30 – 13:00
13 November 2024	10:00 – 11:00
28 November 2024	13:00 – 13:30
28 November 2024	16:00 – 16:45
04 December 2024	15:30 – 15:50

Q2 request: Please can I request the following information: (2) Please can you share the dates and times of these meetings?

Q2 response: The dates and times are provided in Table 1 (above) for Ms Gougeon. The dates and times are provided in Table 2 (above) for Mr Fairlie.

Q3 request: Please can I request the following information: (3) Between 2021 and December 2023 how many meetings took place between NFU Scotland and a member of the Scottish Government?

Q3 response: The answer is 59 meetings, and I have included a table below (Table 3) with the meetings with the NFUS with members of the Scottish Government, as published online, on the dates you requested, 2021 – December 2023, for ease of reference:

TABLE 3

Name of Minister	NFUS Engagement	Date
Fergus Ewing	Meeting/Tele	20/01/2021
Fergus Ewing	Meeting/Tele	16/02/2021
Roseanna Cunningham	Meeting/Tele	02/04/2021
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Tele	06/04/2021
Kate Forbes	Meeting/Video Conference	11/05/2021
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Phone	19/05/2021
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	15/07/2021
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	23/08/2021
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	25/08/2021
Fergus Ewing	Meeting	03/09/2021
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Tele	06/09/2021
Mairi McAllan	Meeting/Tele	16/09/2021
Fergus Ewing	Meeting/Phone	03/10/2021
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	28/10/2021
Fergus Ewing	Meeting/Tele	02/12/2021
Lorna Slater	Meeting/Video Conference	14/12/2021
Mairi McAllan	Meeting	16/02/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Video Conference	24/02/2022
Lorna Slater	Meeting	08/06/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	22/06/2022
Mairi McAllan	Meeting	22/06/2022
Mairi McAllan	Meeting	23/06/2022
Mairi McAllan	Speech	23/06/2022
Lorna Slater	Visit	24/06/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Visit	24/06/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	12/07/2022
Mairi McAllan	Meeting/Video Conference	12/07/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Video Conference	14/07/2022
Jamie Hepburn	Meeting	23/09/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	13/10/2022
Mairi McAllan	Speech	27/10/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Visit	02/11/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Conference	02/11/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Video Conference	05/12/2022
Mairi Gougeon	Reception	09/02/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	10/02/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/ with MSPs	07/03/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/tele	03/05/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	11/05/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	17/05/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/ with MP	19/05/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Visit	12/06/2023
Shona Robinson	Meeting	15/06/2023
Lorna Slater	Meeting	23/06/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	23/06/2023
Mairi McAllan	Visit	10/07/2023
Paul McLennan	Meeting/Video Conference	09/08/2023
Lorna Slater	Meeting	26/09/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Video Conference	27/09/2023
Fiona Hyslop	Meeting	11/10/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	13/10/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting/Video Conference	25/10/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Conference	26/10/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Conference	22/11/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	22/11/2023
Shona Robinson	Meeting	22/11/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	05/12/2023
Mairi Gougeon	Meeting	06/12/2023
Richard Lochhead	Meeting	12/12/2023

Q4 request: Please can I request the following information: (4) Please can you also share the dates and times of these meetings?

Q4 response: Please see the table above (Table 3) for the dates as requested. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested, regarding specific timings and duration of the meetings. This is because The Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have asked for because Scottish Government standard records management protocol requires that Ministerial Outlook accounts (incorporating mailbox and calendar) must be maintained at a size (in GBs) which will not impact on functionality. This means that emails are retained for a maximum of three months, and calendars updated to retain only information required for archive. Ministerial meetings are proactively published on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-travel-andgifts/

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.