FOI requests handled with ‘impartiality and integrity’, John Swinney says

The first minister has insisted that freedom of information requests are “handled with the highest standards of impartiality and integrity” after the Scottish information commissioner said he could no longer trust ministers with the Salmond files.

David Hamilton said last week that ministers had failed to release legal advice the government had received in complying with a decision he had made in 2024.

And he suggested they had “tried to conceal this breach of trust with unjustified delays and a wall of silence”.

But when asked about the intervention during FMQs, John Swinney said the publication of the material was not “simple or straightforward” and required the government to  “navigate complex legal issues”.

He added the government had released “thousands of pages of material” despite the complexity.

The freedom of information request related to an independent investigation into then first minister Nicola Sturgeon which cleared her of misleading parliament during a Holyrood inquiry into the handling of harassment claims against Alex Salmond.

After initially refusing the request, Hamilton ordered them to release the information and went on to threaten legal action after a series of deadlines were missed.

The government finally published a large tranche of documents last month.

But Hamilton said he had sought further reassurances that the government had complied with an order to release legal advice relating to a previous appeal.

After receiving a response from the permanent secretary, the commissioner said the government had failed to comply and that he was considering legal action. He added: “I can no longer trust the government to handle this information unsupervised and will explore more intrusive options to ensure compliance.”

Labour MSP Katy Clark urged the FM to “commit to providing the information required by law”, warning that refusing to do so made it look as if the government was  “engaged in a systematic cover-up”.

Swinney said the vast majority of FOI requests made to the government were responded to on time, with the commissioner only raising issues with two cases.

He added: “One relates to a delay in compliance of just over four weeks due to the need to adhere to court orders and the scale and complexity of material involved. The other is about the interpretation of the scope of the request. The permanent secretary has assured the commissioner that all FOI cases are handled with the highest standards of impartiality and integrity.”