Information: An email to Nicola Sturgeon's office reminded civil servants to pass their draft responses to special advisers. PA

Scottish Government civil servants are being instructed to pass draft responses to freedom of information (FOI) requests from journalists to politically appointed special advisers.

A string of internal emails between civil servants and special advisers has been published by the Scottish Government following a separate FOI request on the behaviour.

Last month 23 journalists, including trade union representatives from STV News and the BBC, signed an open letter raising a number of complaints about the handling of information requests from members of the media.


An email from the government's central enquiry unit - which receives information requests from members of the public - to the First Minister's office in May reminded civil servants to pass on draft responses to advisors for prior review. A second recipient was also copied into the email but their identity has been redacted from the release.

The email states: "If the request is from a journalist, responses should be issued by the relevant communications team.

"Please ensure that you involve them throughout the process and also clear your draft response with SPADs [special advisers] and ministers. Guidance on this is available at Steps 33 and 34 of the Step-by-Step Guide to Handling FOI/EIRs Requests."

Instruction: An internal Scottish Government email sent on May 23, 2017. Scottish Government

Special advisers are temporally appointed civil servants who are given the job by ministers to provide them with advice, talk on their behalf to the media and to liaise with outside groups who wish to shape government policy.

The Scottish Government currently has 13 special advisers, the second highest total since devolution.

A spokesman for the devolved administration said: ""All requests for information are handled equally.


"Our published guidance explains that special advisers sometimes provide comments on draft responses, as do other officials who have knowledge of, or an interest in, the information which has been requested."

Guidance issued to civil servants states information to the media is classified as "sensitive" and therefore "may well need comments from special advisers". Other requests, those not classed as sensitive, can be cleared without going to the 13-strong team.

Separately under a specified a code of conduct which special advisers must abide by, the political appointees must not "ask civil servants to do anything which is inconsistent with their obligations under the civil service code" and they "should act in a way which upholds the political impartiality of other civil servants".

Scottish Conservative MSP Finlay Carson said: "A request for should be treated the same regardless of who submits it.

"All this does is create an impression that the SNP wants to get the spinners involved from the outset.

"That makes people more suspicious that this is a nationalist government completely uninterested in transparency and accountability."

Scottish Labour MSP Neil Findlay, who led a parliamentary debate on the subject last month, said: "It's now time SNP ministers took action to ensure their government is as open and transparent as they profess it to be."

Green MSP Andy Wightman said the guidance issued to civil servants "needs changed" and "at no point should ministers' political advisers be clearing responses to journalists."