This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Scotland’s information watchdog has ruled that Scottish ministers breached the country’s transparency laws by wrongly singling out the media for discriminatory treatment.



Daren Fitzhenry, the Scottish information commissioner, has ordered ministers in Edinburgh to overhaul their freedom of information (FoI) procedures after upholding a series of complaints by 23 journalists in June last year.

He said his formal investigation, his first since becoming Scotland’s third information commissioner last October, found that ministers and their special advisers applied a two-tier screening system for requests by journalists, MSPs and party researchers.



He found “unjustifiable, significant delays and disregard for statutory timescales” with a number of media requests, which were “expressly made subject to a different process for clearance than other requester groups”.

Journalists were significantly more likely to have their requests refused or only partially answered in 2015/16 and 2016/17, and less likely to have full disclosure than ordinary members of the public.

He added: “By creating and applying a process based on requester type rather than the nature of the request, not only is the spirit of FoI legislation offended but trust between those groups mentioned in the policy and the Scottish government may also be damaged.”

While processes had improved significantly last year after his predecessor ordered changes last year, that extra layer of screening by ministerial aides meant 47% of media requests were issued late in 2016/17.

Although he found no evidence that legal exemptions were applied to some requests for improper reasons, others were delayed for “tenuous” reasons.

The commissioner made a series of recommendations and findings, including accusing ministers of inadequate record keeping on FoI requests, particularly when legal exemptions were applied, and that civil servants were often poorly trained and ill-experienced in FoI law.

Fitzhenry’s inquiry was launched at Holyrood’s request after a group of journalists, including reporters on the Guardian, Times and Sunday Post, and the Ferret and Commonspace news websites, as well as union representatives for BBC and STV journalists, raised a series of complaints about official handling of FoI requests.

Joe FitzPatrick, minister for parliamentary business, said his government accepted all the commissioner’s recommendations and had already begun improving the treatment of journalists’ FoI requests, and had already speeded up and improved their handling.

Confirming that the government would also produce an action plan ordered by the commissioner in three months’ time, he said he had already introduced new rules that meant requests would no longer be screened because of the identity or profession of the applicant.

He said FoI rules that applied to his devolved government and its agencies were already more liberal and wide-ranging than UK-wide legalisation. “Freedom of information is an important right and an important part of our democracy,” he said.

Leslie Evans, the most senior civil servant in the Scottish government, said in a rare public statement that her officials had already put more staffing into handling FoI requests, developed a new tracking system and were improving case management.



Opposition parties were scathing, however. Oliver Mundell, for the Scottish Conservatives, said ministers had a “shameful record” on transparency, while Rhoda Grant, for Scottish Labour, said the commissioner’s conclusions were damning.