Nick Henderson

By e-mail

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Our ref: FOI/08/01151

22 December 2008

Dear Mr Henderson,

Thank you for your request dated 24 October 2008 for information under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 relating to the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland ) Bill. We have now completed our search for the information you request, and copies of the material that has been released are attached to this e-mail. A schedule of these documents is also attached.

Under section 25 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. Much of the information relating to the Bill (including a draft of the Bill, the Accompanying Documents and the Equalities Impact Assessment) is available from the Scottish Parliament website www.scottish.parliament.uk and the Scottish Government website www.scotland.gov.uk. If you do not have access to obtain this information from the websites listed, then please contact me again and I will arrange to provide it in hard copy.

In this instance, exemptions under sections 29(1)(a) and and 36(1) of the Act apply to some of the information you have requested and it has not been provided to you. Section 29(1)(a) relates to the formulation or development of government policy and section 36(1) relates to confidentiality in legal proceedings.

As the exemption is conditional we have applied the 'public interest test'. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption. This is because the factors considered in carrying out the public interest test were; the ability for decisions to be made in a fully informed legal context, the ability to present and discuss legal advice without fear or favour and the ability to carry out freely the consideration, development and rejection of proposals.

If you are unhappy with this response to your request, you may ask us to carry out an internal review, by writing to Director General Justice and Communities, Floor 1W.11, St Andrews House, Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG. Your request should explain why you wish a review to be carried out, and should be made within 40 working days of receipt of this letter, and we will reply within 20 working days of receipt. If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to make a formal complaint to the Scottish Information Commissioner.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the Scottish Government will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright material on the OPSI website http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm

Information you receive which is not subject to Crown Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any third party (non Crown Copyright) information.

I hope this is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Sara Stewart