Mr Rule requested from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (the SPCB) all minutes of meetings which had discussed the Festival of Politics 2008 and all correspondence between Mr Paul Henderson Scott and the Scottish Parliament. The SPCB responded by directing Mr Rule to its website for some of the information requested, supplying certain documents subject to the redaction of personal data and withholding one document in its entirety on the basis that it was exempt under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA. Following a review, Mr Rule remained dissatisfied and applied to the Commissioner for a decision.
Following an investigation, the Commissioner found that the SPCB had partially failed to deal with Mr Rule’s request for information in accordance with Part 1 of FOISA, by incorrectly applying section 33(1)(b) of FOISA to one document (the disclosure of which he did not accept as being substantially prejudicial to the SPCB’s commercial interests) and by failing to respond to Mr Rule’s request for review within the timescale set out in section 21(1) of FOISA. The Commissioner required the SPCB to supply Mr Rule with a copy of the withheld document.
The Commissioner was satisfied, however, that the SPCB had taken adequate steps to locate all the information which fell within the scope of Mr Rule’s request and in that respect complied with Part 1.
[2009] ScotIC 078 – 2009
Bailii
Scotland
Information
Updated: 22 November 2021; Ref: scu.434028
