Question reference: S6W-25078
- Asked by: Fergus Ewing, MSP for Inverness and Nairn, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 8 February 2024
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Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 7 March 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of Decision 004/2023 of the Scottish
Information Commissioner, whether it will list the (a) name and (b) job title
of each of its civil servants that were appointed to the secretariat that
assisted James Hamilton in his investigation into whether the former First
Minister had complied with the Scottish Ministerial Code, as described in the
Commissioner's decision; whether any of the civil servants appointed to this
secretariat were special advisers, and, if so, and in the event that any
special advisers were involved in the process of deciding what parts of the
Hamilton Report to redact, whether it will propose the scheduling of time
for a ministerial statement on this matter.
Answer
The Scottish Government seconded one individual to provide a Secretariat function to the Independent Advisor on the Ministerial Code while he conducted his review. Ahead of publication, Mr Hamilton requested additional secretariat support. Four additional permanent civil servants below the grade of Senior Civil Service were seconded to support the Secretariat from the SG Organisational Continuity Team (OCT) for a limited period from 15 March 2021, primarily to support the redaction and publication process. None of those civil servants was a Special Adviser and Special Advisers were not involved in the process of deciding what parts of the Hamilton Report to redact.
Please note we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested relating to names. This information is personal data of a third party, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and Section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.