FOI/202300378440 · FOI · partially withheld
Gender Recognition Reform Bill correspondence: FOI release
Information requested
All correspondence (including emails, attachments, typed or handwritten notes, letters, notes/records of phone calls, minutes of meetings, briefings, WhatsApp messages or otherwise) between Ash Regan (formerly known as Ash Denham) and Nicola Sturgeon (and/or her officials) with regards to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Please provide correspondence between 27 June 2018 and 28 October 2022.
Response
I enclose a copy of all of the information you requested. This had previously been released under FoI request ref: 202200327791 which is awaiting publication on the Scottish Government website. For ease, I will provide the original released documents.
Please see document 1, attached, that provides an excerpt of an email to the First Minister and a screenshot of a text message from the First Minister’s Chief of Staff to Ms Regan. Document 2 is the letter of response from the First Minister.
An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested, because it is personal data of a third party, in that it consists of personal information that may identify an individual 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 applies to some of the information you have requested, because it is personal data of a third party, in that it consists of personal information that may identify an individual 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.