· FOI · partially withheld
Provision of IT Consumables 2016: FOI release
Information requested
A copy of awarded tenderers submission for the provision of IT Consumables 2016/S 200-361672, under the Freedom of Information Act.
Response
I enclose a copy of the information you requested within Annex A.
We do endeavour to provide all of the information whenever possible, however, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exemptions under sections s.33(1)(b) (commercial interests) and s.38(1)(b) (personalinformation) of FOISA apply to this information. The reasons why the exemptions have been applied are explained below.
Disclosure of some of this information is withheld under s33(1)(b) [Commercial interest], as disclosure of it is likely to prejudice substantially the commercial interest of the bidders and the Scottish Government As the exemption is conditional we have applied the 'public interest test' to the redacted information. This means we have, in all circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the exemption.
We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding exemption. We recognise there is a public interest in having transparent tendering processes, which we believe is met by the information we are releasing. On the other hand, if commercially sensitive information is made public, it is likely to deter companies from tendering within the Scottish Government. This, in turn, could mean the Scottish Government may be unable to generate genuine and effective competitive tendering processes, and that, in our view, would not be in the public interest.
Finally, parts of the tender documents are also exempt from disclosure under s38 (1)(b) of the Act [Personal Information], which does not require consideration of the public interest test. We have redacted personal information because this information relates to living individuals who would not have any expectation that the information would be released and if we were to release, we would be in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.
You will find full details of the exemptions that I consider apply to the information you requested at www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2002/13/contents.
Due to the file size of the documents released, copies can be provided on request by emailing ceu@gov.scot, quoting the FOI reference number FOI/17/01478.
Detected exemption language
We do endeavour to provide all of the information whenever possible, however, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exemptions under sections s.33(1)(b) (commercial interests) and s.38(1)(b) (personalinformation) of FOISA apply to this information. The reasons why the exemptions have been applied are explained below. Disclosure of some of this information is withheld under s33(1)(b) [Commercial interest], as disclosure of it is likely to prejudice substantially the commercial interest of the bidders and the Scottish Government As the exemption is conditional we have applied the 'public interest test' to the redacted information. This means we have, in all circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding exemption.
Attachments
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