Rule v Scottish Ministers: SIC 13 Dec 2011

Correspondence with named individuals – Mr Rule requested from the Scottish Ministers (the Ministers) all information held by the First Minister’s Office contained in correspondence with any one of a list of 19 named people. The Ministers failed to respond and Mr Rule requested a review. Following the review, when the Ministers responded by stating that Mr Rule’s requests were invalid, Mr Rule remained dissatisfied and applied to the Commissioner for a decision.
Following an investigation, the Commissioner found that the Ministers had failed to deal with Mr Rule’s requests for information in accordance with Part 1 of FOISA, by incorrectly concluding that the requests did not fulfil the requirements of section 8(1) of FOISA. He was satisfied that the requests met those requirements and were therefore valid. Consequently, he required the Ministers to review their handling of Mr Rule’s information requests, and notify him of the outcome of that review.

Citations:

[2011] ScotIC 245 – 2011)

Links:

Bailii

Scotland, Information

Updated: 05 October 2022; Ref: scu.451555