Fife Council's application for Scotland City Region Deal: FOI Review
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
FOI reference: FOI/18/00109
Date responded: 20 April 2018
Information requested
Communication between Fife Council and the Scottish Government relating to Fife Council's application for the Edinburgh & SE Scotland City Region Deal and the Tay Cities Deal.
Response
I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) for "communication between Fife Council and the Scottish Government relating to Fife Council's application for the Edinburgh & SE Scotland City Region Deal and the Tay Cities Deal".
I have concluded that a different decision should be substituted.
In conducting my review I have considered the case afresh. I have determined exemptions under sections 30(b)(i) and 30(b)(ii) (free and frank advice and exchange of views) and section 33(b)(1) – (commercial interests) would not apply to all of the information previously withheld. I have therefore provided most of the information you requested as attachements below.
In addition, some of the information you have requested is available from:
Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.
I have also noted that in the information provided in response to FOI2 in our initial response, all emails were released without the headers making it difficult to identify the date and origin of the e-mails. I have therefore provided a further copy of the emails released in FOI2 of our initial response with further information showing the date and the origin of these emails.
I am satisfied that exemptions under sections 30(b)(i) and 30(b)(ii) (free and frank advice and exchange of views) and section 33(b)(1) – (commercial interests) were appropriately applied to the remainder of the information held within the scope of your request for the reasons set out in our initial response.
In addition, I have also concluded that an exemption under section 38(1)(b) (personal data) applies to a small amount of the information you requested because it is personal data of a third party, for example the names and contact details of individuals, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. 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.
In addition below are a number of Committee papers linked to the deals which may be of interest so I have copied the links below:
City Deal Proposal approved by the Executive Committee on 9th December 2014
https://www.fifedirect.org.uk/uploadfiles/publications/c64_AgendaandReportsEC091214WhitePapers.pdf
City Deal Update approved by the Executive Committee on 2nd June 2015
Edinburgh and South East of Scotland City Deal Update approved by the Executive Committee on 21st June 2016
Edinburgh and South East of Scotland City Deal Update approved by the Executive Committee on 28th February 2017
Edinburgh and South East of Scotland City Deal Heads of Terms approval on 13th September 2017.
Edinburgh and South East of Scotland City Deal approval 23rd November 2017.
https://www.fifedirect.org.uk/uploadfiles/publications/c64_AgendaPapers231117Public.pdf
Tay Cities Update paper 6 July 2017
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
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
There is a problem
Thanks for your feedback