FOI Request - Review of FOI 101003476891 Keith Grammar and LGBT Charter Award

Request 101003513528

Review of FOI 101003476891 Keith Grammar and LGBT Charter Award

I would like to ask for a review of FOI 101003476891.

Every other council that has been sent the same request has sent a response in full. I don't believe this request would result in excessive cost.

Response 25-03-2024

Following your request for a review (review ref: 101003513528) of your Freedom of Information (FOI) Request - Keith Grammar and LGBT Charter Award ref: 101003476891, a review meeting was held on 11th March 2024. In attendance were the Information Governance Manager and Data Protection Officer, Head Teacher and Deputy Head Teacher Keith Grammar School, Solicitor, and, Information Co-ordinator.

Your FOI Request from 23rd January 2024 was discussed.

We reviewed the response of 26th February, including the application of exemptions under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, excessive cost, and under Section 38(1)(b) - personal information.  

The Panel confirmed that in part these exemptions still apply, specifically Section 38(1)(b) - personal information is still applicable to information that is relevant and identifying to pupil’s submission data. However, upon further investigation it has become clear that the Council should not have applied Section 12 – excessive costs, instead Section 17 – information not held, should have been applied. We apologise for this error.

We can confirm that, following extensive efforts by the school to obtain the information requested, most documents that formed part of the submission were supplied directly to LGBT Youth (such as online surveys) and therefore cannot be accessed. Some application documentation was completed and sent via email from staff’s Outlook accounts, which has since been deleted, which is in line with council retention guidelines. This part of the information requested is therefore exempt under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held.

Nonetheless, some documents have been found that do not contain personal data and which would have been submitted as part of the application process. These document will be provided and are: the Signed Charter Agreement with the school, a Portfolio Review and Visit document, two Jamboard documents and a LGBT Charter Portfolio Review 2023- Post Revisions document. We apologise that these were not provided previously.