FOI/19/00707 · FOI · partially withheld
Scottish Government correspondence with colleagues in Northern Ireland Executive: FOI release
Information requested
You have asked for copies of: “all communications sent from the Scottish Office to your collleagues in the N I Office, Belfast”. Firstly, I would just wish to point for the sake of clarity that your request has been considered on the basis of ‘ all communications sent from the Scottish Government to your colleagues in the Northern Ireland Executive’.
Response
Our aim is to provide information whenever possible and I therefore attach the information you have requested.
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, ie the names/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.
Detected exemption language
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, ie the names/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.