Publication - FOI/EIR release

Kevin Stewart Meetings July 2022: FOI review

Published: 6 February 2024
Directorate: Social Care and National Care Service Development
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202200331290
Date received: 21 November 2022
Date responded: 20 December 2022

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Information requested

All internal and external correspondence within and sent or received by the Scottish Government including attached documents, meeting handouts, memos, briefings to ministers, attendee
lists, location of meeting, notes, minutes, or OneNote memos, linked to the following meetings:

1a) Kevin Stewart's meeting with IJB Chief Officers on July 18, 2022
1b) Kevin Stewart's meeting with People with Lived Experience on July 25, 2022'

Response

Most of the information you requested is attached.

1a) Kevin Stewart's meeting with IJB Chief Officers on July 18, 2022

Attached you will find three documents relating to this meeting. The first of these is entitled 'FOI – Correspondence – 202200331290' and contains email chains relating to the meeting on 18 July between Mr Stewart and Chief Officers.

The second is titled 'Integration - Briefing pack - Mr Stewart meeting with IJB Chief Officers - 18 July 2022'. The only redactions made are to the names of some attendees below Senior Civil Service level and a small portion of text in Annex D. This attachment has been flagged main document and with mention made of the redactions and exemption being applied.

The third document is entitled 'HSCS Chief Officer Executive Group - NCS key questions August 2022'. This attachment has also been flagged in the main document.

1b) Kevin Stewart's meeting with People with Lived Experience on July 25, 2022

Attached you will find all internal and external correspondence, supporting documents, meeting agenda, memos, briefings to ministers, location of meeting and notes (as well as a full transcript). There are 15 PDFs in total relating to this meeting.

The details of all staff below Senior Civil Service (Deputy Director level) have been redacted.

As we are unable to confirm the equivalent level for external attendees, we have removed all details with the exception of Donald MacLeod, Chief Executive of SDSS (co chair).

Exemptions
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 an exemption(s) under section(s) s.29(1)(a) (policy formulation), s.38(1)(b) (personal information)] of FOISA applies to that information. Exemption s29(1)(a) 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.

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.