Facts released... then redacted

MINISTERS faced fresh accusations of a secrecy culture last night by attempting to block information – after it had been released.

Officials handed material about the controversial Named Person scheme to a journalist but then tried to redact it.

The mistake related to the naming of an individual whose identity should not have been revealed for data protection reasons – but had been handed over.

The gaffe comes after it emerged that Scottish Government special advisers (Spads) are still censoring freedom of information (FOI) responses.

Last night, Scottish Tory chief whip Maurice Golden said: ‘This is a classic example of SNP incompetence on FOI, as well as its attitude. The Nationalists would do well to remember this is the law and they must abide by it. It would be comical was it not so serious.’

FOI campaigner and journalist James McEnaney tweeted yesterday that he had ‘received a Scottish Government email telling me they’d like to redact more information in documents they’ve already GIVEN ME’. He added: ‘It would be funny if it weren’t so serious.’

The email refers to an FOI response sent on Monday of last week to Mr McEnaney. It states: ‘We have since redacted two further names that were not previously redacted from our response to you.

‘The names redacted are exempt under Section 38 (1) (b) of FOISA [Freedom of Information Scotland Act] (personal information) because it is personal data of a third party, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998.’

It adds: ‘I would like to personally apologise for my mistake in releasing this information to you.’ A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Human error resulted in information that should have been redacted being erroneously issued.

‘As soon as this mistake was identified we contacted the recipient and removed the error from the material before it was published on our website.’