Publication - FOI/EIR release

Valneva plant in Livingston: FOI release

Published: 21 December 2023
Directorate: Economic Development Directorate
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202200292252
Date received: 1 April 2022
Date responded: 4 May 2022

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

Information requested

All the correspondence and any other messages - email, letter, WhatsApp, text and any other form of communication - between the Scottish Government, including the First Minister's office (including civil servants and special advisers) and Valneva, or any other company or agency involved, on the First Minister's visit to the Valneva plant in Livingston on March 28.

Response

The information held by the Scottish Government that falls within the scope of your request has been attached separately for your reference. While our aim is to provide you information wherever we can, on this occasion we are unable to provide you with all of the information you have requested as statutory exemptions under FOISA apply. Further information on what exemptions apply and why can be found in the annex to this letter.

ANNEX
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION
Section 33(1)(b) – Prejudice to Commercial Interests
An exemption under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested because it is likely to prejudice substantially the commercial interests of the parties.
This exemption applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the commercial interests of the commercial entities involved. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking into 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in release to ensure full transparency. However, this is outweighed by the public interest as there is a risk to the companies commercial interests.

Section 38(1)(b) – Personal Data
This exemption applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e. names and contact details, 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.