Meeting of the Parliament 21 June 2017
No. Requests are all prepared by Scottish Government officials. Special advisers have a role in assessing draft responses for accuracy. [Laughter.]
As discussed in Parliament last week, I recognise the interest of the media in the operation of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. As well as responding to the recent letter from members of the media, I will be meeting the National Union of Journalists to discuss those and other points and how we can use our improvement plan to build confidence in the FOI process.
Turning to the action that we are taking, we need to ensure that we have appropriate resources in place to comply with our obligations. We are also taking steps to raise the profile of FOI through improved local management and staff training, and have set up an improvement project to examine different approaches to case handling.
We need to acknowledge that the ever-increasing expectation is that information will be readily available without having to ask for it, and at the click of a mouse. Proactive release is one way that we have chosen to feed that hunger for information. Current publications include ministerial engagements, travel and expenses information and detailed information on Scottish Government spending, and we continue to look for opportunities for proactive publication.
In tandem with improving our FOI performance and as part of our continuing development of the Scottish Government website, I am taking steps to ensure that all information released in response to information requests is also published online from 3 July. Publishing information when it is released will ensure that it is available to all without further requests and will add to transparency. That information will be available on the publications section of the Government’s website at beta.gov.scot.
That move to make information readily accessible is in line with the principles of open government. Our open government national action plan sets out several demanding commitments, which include increased financial transparency to empower communities to influence budget priorities and increased citizen participation in local government. It is important that our legislation remains fit for purpose, and we have regularly revised our FOI framework to ensure that it remains up to date.