 Maen nhw i'n ddwylo chi, Cymru, o'r cymdeithasol i chi ddweud i gael gynlluneth? Yn ddissol 잠깐만au mewn busnes, rungtyn adeiladau gwneud o ffoton 5, 9, 4, 6, ar unrhyw gwaithi Niel Findlay, o di기�wyddnol, i'r cyfrifiadau cys功iau a'r Gwylian Niel i gael grefiau ar ei ei ddaledu rhan sleid. Rym ni'n gweithio i chi'n dd wordswyd ac i wneud i chi ddweud i chi ddweud i ddweud, Felly, dwi'n rhan i'n ffrindwyr i gydag y ddegwyddio firmaeth sgwrn o'r ddiwethaff mlyneddau ag y bedwn gwneud fawr. Rwy'n erbyn i gydag ddegwyddio firmaeth rai neimu ddegwyddio firmaeth yn mynd mwy yr drwng ofensol iaith, a bod analyze'r ddigwethaff i ddigeithio mwy o'r ddiwethaff i ddegwyddio firmaeth. Fodd iddynt fel Llyfridog i ddangosu â'i gwael hefydol i gweithio yr edrych gyda gondol gyda'r ddysgu'r informatio that has held by the state about what has been done in their name. A recent ipsauSmoryPole in 2017 showed 94 per cent of people agreed that it is important for the public to be able to access such information. The right to access information has three distinct elements. It empowers people to make an information request and receive the information quickly, i'w sreidio i wybodaeth i'w ddiwedd y cyfnod oedon nhw'n ei wneud i'w ddim yn hyfforddiant ac yn ffwrdd i'w ddweud i ddim yn cael ei gydag i'w ddweud. Ond oes i'w ddweud o'r hyn, rydyn ni'n gwybod o'r cyflosio dechrau perlwysgau a chyfnoddau i ddim yn ei ddweud o ddweud. Rhyw gwrsiau yn gweithio'n gwneud i ddweud o'r cyflosiau a gydag i ddweud i ddweud o ddweud i ddweud. ac mae'n dwylltion o ddwylltion y peth o'r cyfnod arall i'ch dweithiau hwnnw, i ddweithio'r gwaith iawn i ddweithio. Mae ddoch yn cyngor i, rydym darllen, i ddweithio'r ddweithio am y ddiwylltion. Mae'r cyfnod ar dhyglweddorol yn y cyfnod saith, yn dweithio'si atgoi, a'r dweithio'r ddweithio, ac yn gwneud panodau diwedd, mae ddweithio'r ddweithio'r ddweithio'r ddweithio'r ddweithio'r ddweithio Of course, it's not just members of this Parliament or the public who use FOI as a means to try and break through the secrecy of government and public bodies. Journalists use it too. Just two weeks ago, 23 prominent journalists signed an open letter to this Parliament, raising very serious concerns about how FOI is being mishandled, deliberately mishandled in my view. They highlighted delays beyond the 20-day period for answers, how emails asking for an update on answering requests in cases of delays are routinely ignored by officials, officials delaying responses for so long that the initial requests only get answered under internal review, making it impossible for journalists to ask for incomplete replies to be internally reviewed again, resulting in longer delays as they have to go to the information commissioner. Government officials are taking control of requests to other government agencies without the consent of the applicant, requests being blocked or refused for 10-year reasons, requests being screened for political damage by special advisers and off-responses to individual journalists being routinely handled by special advisers, and much, much more. Those complaints have been made by respected journalists, including Rob Edwards, Severn Carroll, Dan Sanderson, Andrew Picken, Bernard Ponsonby, David Clegg, Michael Blightley, Paul Hutch and Tom Gordon, Kieran Andrews, Simon, Johnston and others. It is incredible that such a diverse list of experienced journalists felt that they had no option but to do this, and I particularly want to thank the ferret in common space for their excellent work on the issue. Cartailing a free press, the refusal to release information and a culture of secrecy, are the tactics deployed by despots and dictators, not a Government that boasts that it is one of the 15 pioneer members of the open government partnerships international sub-national government programme. My office uses FOI regularly to try and hold those in power to account. Time and again, the Government routinely blocks or redacts the release of information. We are regularly told that meetings listed in ministerial diaries have no agenda, no minutes or notes taken because no substantive government business was discussed. Let me give you a few examples. January 21, 2016, the First Minister and senior civil servant Lisa Byrd met with financier Peter Devink at the new club Edinburgh, described at Scotland's oldest and preeminent private members club, featuring fine dining, entertainment and a socially vibrant atmosphere. I couldn't comment, I've never been. No agenda, no minutes were taken. 26 September again, the new club, popular place apparently. John Swinney and Fiona Robertson, director of learning Scottish Government, met businessman Angus Tillich. No agenda, no minutes. 2 November 2016, Derek Mackay and a senior civil servant met Barry White and Peter Rickey of the Scottish Futures Trust. No agenda, no minutes. 9 November 2016, Humza Yousaf met Phil Vester, then ScotRail. No agenda, no minutes. You know the routine. 29 October 2016, John Swinney met Sally Loudon, chief executive of COSLA. No agenda, no minutes. 25 February 2016, John Swinney met with senior Ineos officials. No agenda, no minutes. 7 September 2016, Nicola Sturgeon met with Alan Muir, editor of the Scottish Sun. No agenda, no minutes. 15 March 2015, Nicola Sturgeon met with Andrew Wilson of Charlotte Street Partners. You've guessed it. No agenda, no minutes. Are we seriously supposed to believe that ministers met with the chief executive of ScotRail, with Ineos who want to frack half of Scotland, COSLA, directors of the Scottish Futures Trust, the editor of one of the country's biggest selling newspapers, a senior law-based and a chair of the SNP's growth commission and no substantive government business was discussed? The Government seems to think that we all zip up the back. Only yesterday, only yesterday has received a very late response in relation to the transvaginal mesh review. The reply is remarkable. At the Public Petitions Committee meeting on mesh, the cabinet secretary said that on this issue and I quote, there were a great number of FOI requests that involve a lot of information. I reassure Mr Finlay that we will respond to his FOI request as quickly as possible. His office has requested a great deal of information which it will take time to gather, however the response will be issued as quickly as possible. Yesterday, only nine emails or letters were released. Is this the lot of information that the cabinet secretary promised, but it gets worse? We were denied all other information because they claim that the review set up by the Scottish Government was independent and as such does not fall under FOI, even though the Government provided the secretariat to the group and they have admitted that they hold all minutes and all correspondence. Let me add a few things that I have received just today. A meeting between John Swinney and EIS Fela on 14 May regarding the colleges dispute, no agenda, no minutes, 16 September 2016, Keith Brown meeting businessmen to discuss Chinese investment in Scotland, no agenda, no minutes. That is farcical. It is not just the Scottish Government that is at fault. We find other public bodies using similar tactics. I am today calling on this Parliament to take these matters very seriously indeed. Scotland is not a pioneer in open government. It is a country where there is a systematic avoidance of scrutiny and accountability from the highest level down. I am calling on the Standards and Procedures Committee to hold an inquiry into the claims made by the 23 journalists. There must be a whole-scale review of the way that the Government operates FOI. We cannot allow the current practice to continue. We will move on to the open debate. Can I have speeches of no more than four minutes please? That is Graham Simpson to be followed by Monica Lennon. Can I start by thanking Neil Findlay, not something that I am in the habit of doing, for bringing this matter to Parliament and for his excellent speech? We should also thank the 23 journalists who wrote their open letter highlighting their concerns over the handling of FOIs. I note that their employers range from the BBC, STV, the Daily Record, Daily Mail and even the Sunday Herald, not known for criticising the Scottish Government. I was disappointed not to see any signatory from my former employers, the Scottish Son. I hope that their omission is because they were not asked and not that they refused. Serious issues have been raised by the journalists. It is essential in a democracy that authorities are open and transparent, and the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act is to ensure that they are. However, when you have people running Government, councils, whatever, who are by their nature centralising and mistrusting of the public, then they will try to find ways around the law. That is what I think has been going on. The journalists have shone a light on the practice. The former Scottish Information Commissioner, Rosemary Agnew, said as much when she described the behaviour of ministers on freedom of information as totally unacceptable and rude. The Scottish Government says that it is outward looking, more open and accessible to Scotland's people than ever before. They promise to be a beacon of transparency. Those words are easy to say, but less easy to back up because the evidence shows the opposite. You cannot help thinking that the response to tricky questions is not tell them what they want to know, but what shall we tell them? If your instinct is to keep things hidden, then your response to potentially embarrassing requests could be to say that records aren't kept or that minutes weren't taken. Failing that, then stalling tactics are employed, presumably to frustrate the person requesting the information in the hope that they'll give up and go away. Let's look at some of the things the journalist letter alleges. Information requests being delayed beyond the deadline, emails asking for updates ignored, endless delays leading to complaints to the commissioner, requests being blocked or refused for tenuous reasons and requests being screened for political damage by special advisers. I think we've had quite enough of special advisers, thank you. If I'm allowed time, no extra time, sorry I can't. I've heard Joe Fitzpatrick's meandering and vague answers in Parliament on this and they don't wash. Let's hope we get more sense today. As I said, I used to be a journalist. The press has its faults but a free press and an open government are essential to our democracy. There should always be a tension between the press and government. Government will always have things they don't want people to know about and it's the job of journalists to find out these things. Remember the farce that we had when the SNP said that it had taken legal advice on an independent Scotland's place in the EU? It spent thousands of taxpayers of money to stop us discovering that it had no such advice. No wonder Rosemary Agnew formed the view that she did. The Scottish Government needs to change its ways. Yes, there are times when you need to have private discussions so that you can talk about things openly, try telling that to the First Minister, but freedom of information is not there to be got round and that is what has been happening. Monica Lennon, to be followed by Andy Wightman. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to pay tribute to my colleague Neil Findlay, MSP, for bringing this important matter to Parliament this evening. Freedom of information legislation is based on the simple democratic principle that the public have a right to know about the decisions and actions taken in their name by the people they elect and pay for. Journalists, as we know, have used FOI to great effect, sometimes with devastating consequences for Governments or individual politicians. Individuals and community groups every day also use FOI to find out important information on issues that matter to them. We are told that requesting information from a Scottish public authority is simple. All you have to do is ask. You don't even have to live in Scotland and you don't have to mention FOI either. Likewise, you don't have to give any reasons for asking or say why you want the information. That comes from the Scottish Information Commissioner booklet, Your Right to Know. It includes tips on how to ask for information. You can ask for any recorded information that the authority holds at the time of your request. Types of information that the authority might hold that are of interest to the public include, for example, internal correspondence, reports and minutes of meetings. The booklet also says that it may be helpful to add your phone number or other contact information if you are happy for the authority or the Government to contact you. It may help to speed the inquiry up. If it is so simple to ask the questions, why is it so difficult to get the answers? The Scottish Government is under attack tonight with this motion. In some respects, I am not surprised that SNP members have signed, but when you listen to the list of appalling sins that have been read out by Neil Findlay tonight, it is really in the interests of all of us in this chamber and all of our constituents to take this matter seriously. Many Government ministers, including the First Minister, were named in that list, which was read out by Neil Findlay. I saw Fergus Ewing sitting at the back just to check that he was not getting a mention and I say that he is no longer here. However, when 23 prominent Scottish journalists have felt the need to see so clearly what they see as shortcomings of how the Freedom of Information Scotland Act is being interpreted and implemented by the Scottish Government and officials, it is clear that something has gone very far wrong. The principles of open and transparent Government, much flaunted by the current administration, is in stark contrast with the vast majority of the evidence of those who use FOI legislation to obtain information. Graham Simpson has alluded to some of the problems that Rose Mary Agnew outlined to former Scottish Information Commissioner. Describing the behaviour of Scottish ministers is rude and totally unacceptable and being unnecessarily pedantic. It does not read well. Severn Carell from the Guardian, in one of his comments ahead of the debate, has outlined that the Scottish Government abruptly stopped publishing FOI request responses on its disclosure log on the Government's website. That only makes it harder for the public and professionals to keep track of those responses. However, the Government kept the introductory log on the website saying that its policy is that where we release information in response to the FOI request, we recognise that it will be usually of interest to the wider public in addition to the original applicant. Earlier this year, I asked the Scottish Government for a record of any meetings that officials and ministers had with organisations to discuss the provision of salientary products in relation to a campaign that I have been involved in on period poverty. As a new member, I thought that asking straightforward parliamentary questions would be the route to get a lot of this information. However, again, I got an answer that had been cleared by SPADs and exemptions had been applied. I am still really none the wiser. Likewise on colleges, I asked for information on John Sturrick QC, who has been appointed as a mediator to the disastrous negotiations around national bargaining. I got a ridiculous response to a parliamentary question, so hopefully when I get some FY replies in the next couple of weeks, we will get further information. I want to end on this point. There is a huge concern in the public about the prevalence of fake news, so it is critical that the public has information that we can trust, and we know the provenance of. My 10-year-old daughter and her classmates recently had a lesson on how to spot fake news. It would be interesting to give them a list of FY responses and ask them what they make of that. I thank Neil Findlay for bringing this debate. I also want to thank the journalists who wrote the letter on 1 June highlighting concerns about the operation of freedom of information legislation, particularly in respect to requests made of the Scottish Government, which comes on the back of criticisms of the Scottish Government by the outgoing Freedom Information Commissioner, who has already been quoted, where she has talked about the Government being unnecessarily pedantic and where it has a poor approach to freedom of information law. On the face of it, journalists appear to be being treated differently, yet they play a vital role in holding power to account. Beyond that particular debate, I would ask the minister if he will provide a full response to the journalists who wrote the letter to Cabinet Secretary Derek Mackay. It is clear to me that we need proper post-legislative scrutiny of the 2002 act, if for no other reason an important part of the regime, the Environmental Information Scotland Regulations, is an EU directive that will be affected by the UK leaving the EU. I want to use my three minutes to highlight three improvements to FOI legislation. The first is the question of an internal review, and Neil Findlay alluded to this. The failure to respond to a request on time has led to the internal review process being used to address this failure and being then unavailable to be used to challenge an unsatisfactory response, leaving only a full appeal to the commissioner. The law could be tightened by providing two distinct internal review procedures, one for failure to respond timiously or other administrative errors, and one on the substantive question, whether the information, in fact, has been released. The second question is the question of logs, which Monica Lennon mentioned. It strikes me as odd that public authorities can, in response to freedom of information requests, release voluminous material to those seeking it, but there is no statutory obligation on them to tell anybody. Anybody else that such information has been released. The means to do this is by a log of requests and responses published by public authorities. The Scottish Government and other authorities have done this, particularly in relation to high-profile cases, for example, the release of McGrachie, the decision to approve planning consent from Mr Trump's golf course, in the case of the City of Edinburgh Council information relating to tenement repairs scandal. However, if freedom of information is to realise its full potential, all releases should, of course, be published on the log. It was something of a shock to read Severn Carell's testimony that the Scottish Government has published no logs since December 2015, and if the minister could address this point in his closing remarks, that would be useful as well. Finally, on the question of copyright, five years ago, I saw information about a Swiss banker called Henry Angest, chairman and chief executive of our Buthnut banking group and a former master of the worshipful company of international bankers. Mr Angest provided almost £7 million to the Conservative Party. He was a funder of Atlantic Bridge, the charity that funded Adam Wherty's excursions around the world with Liam Fox. Mr Angest has also provided substantial funds to the Conservative Party in Scotland, including Murdoff Fraser's failed leadership campaign for the Tory leadership, and he owns an estate in Perthshire, owned by a company in Jersey. In 2005, Mr Angest began providing funding to Perth College to finance research on private land ownership in Scotland. I asked Perth College about the money and Mr Angest's relationship with him. The response that I received was clear that he was, among other things, angling for an honorary degree in return for his financial support. Perth College told me that copyright in the information that he was releasing belonged to Perth College and that its consent was required for me to publish the information that I received. I asked them for their consent, but they refused. To this day, I cannot publish the information that I received five years ago for others to examine. Anyone wanting that information, of course, is perfectly free to make a separate request to Perth College. If information is released under FOI, there should be a statutory right to distribute information provided to anybody else. In conclusion, the FOI regime needs serious scrutiny. It is performed well, as have the two commissioners to date, but the performance of some public authorities leave much to be desired. The Scottish Government, in particular, has questions to answer. The public are entitled to answers to the questions raised by journalists, and I hope that ministers will provide them soon. Tavish Scott, to be followed by Edward Mountain. Neil Findlay is quite right. The Parliament should do no less than initiate a full inquiry into the freedom of information's effectiveness, the culture and institutional behaviour of government at all levels and the behaviour of ministers, special advisers and civil servants. The one point from the litany of worries that were expressed by journalists in the letter that has been cited much in this debate, which strikes me as the most important one, is where those journalists write, that raises the question of whether the Scottish ministers and civil servants now have a practice of not recording information that would previously have been recorded. Is not that the ultimate irony that in the application... Excuse me, can you wait until I say your name for the official report? I wouldn't like them to think that it was somebody else that was speaking. Neil Findlay. Is not that the ultimate irony that in the application to the open government partnership strategy group written by John Swinney, he says at the very end, at the end of the pilot, we would be very happy to mentor another government. Tavish Scott. Well, irony be one way of putting it. Some un-parliamentary language would be another way. But what concerns me most is that kind of institutional behaviour that has been cited much. That was never the intention of the passing of this legislation in 2002. I did that thing that some of us do from time to time and dug out the old debate from all those years back, Deputy Presiding Officer, and you will remember it well because you are in here voting on that matter as well. The Deputy First Minister, who introduced the legislation, said in the stage 1 debate about the independence of the commissioner, which Graham Members across the chamber already mentioned, and the importance of that. Jim Wallace said that the commissioner's independence will ensure the integrity and credibility of the regime. He went on to say that it should not be the case of their saying, How can we withhold this? Do any of the exemptions apply? Instead, the commissioner will ensure that the default setting is disclosure. Now we find, in repeated examples, cited in the letter, cited in many other places as well, that that is exactly what has been going on. The behaviour has become institutional. When Members cite the example of the previous commissioner describing the current government as rude and totally unacceptable, some Ministers should have the integrity to recognise that for what it is, a damning indictment of what is currently going on, and the need for a fundamental change. That is why Neil Findlay is right to argue for a full independent inquiry into what is going on and why it is currently not working as assuredly it is not. One final point on culture, because this all comes down to culture, the culture of behaviour and the fact that that is now not as it should be. Two very good points were made in that 2002 debate. One by my good friend Bruce Crawford, who said, There is no doubt that without changing the culture of secrecy, there can be no change. He went on, but that was a striking and correct observation about the principle of cultural change. Also, by Christine Grahame, who was very outspoken on this matter, as she used to be when she was in opposition, I want to address the culture of openness, which is at the heart of the bill. Those of us who are at Parliament have found it hard to detect the fresh breeze of openness blowing through the Parliament's corridor. She went on to make some points about parliamentary questions, but I will not bore the chamber with that right at this particular moment. There is a lot to be done in this measure, and that culture needs to change. No better than to quote a current minister of the current government who made a very fair observation, I thought, in that debate in the wind-up in stage 3 when Michael Matheson said, and I quote, The information commissioner of Canada said only last year, so this is 2001, that it has taken some 10 to 15 years to start to break down the culture of secrecy that exists in many of Canada's public services. I believe that such culture is probably more deep-rooted in Scotland. Well, indeed it is. 15 years on, we see what's happening. It's time it changed. I call Edward Mountain to be followed by Richard Leonard, who will be the last speaker in the open debate. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and also I'd like to thank Neil Findlay for securing this important member's debate. It's always interesting to be sharing a platform with Mr Findlay, even if it rarely happens and even more rare that we agree, but in this situation we do. The freedom of information laws and procedures in Scotland, such as the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Regulations, were introduced to improve government and set strong standards. It's disappointing that we hear from journalists across the political spectrum the serious concerns they have about in which the way the legislation is being interpreted and implemented by this government. We've heard about the concerns regarding information requests that are delayed below the 20-day working deadline, emails requesting updates of cases being routinely ignored, officials delaying responses for so long that initial requests were only answered under internal review, and Scottish Government officials taking control of requests to other government agencies without the consent of applications that I could go on. Within the open letter, the journalists explained that their experiences raised a concern on whether information requests by journalists are being treated and managed differently. I have to say this, that as a member of this Parliament, I find that when I raise questions that it is usually met by a barrage of smokescreen mirrors diffusion and in some cases complaints to the standards commissioner, which have all been ignored and rejected. I find that the journalists and I have huge sympathy with them that they are being treated differently, but so are members of this Parliament. Delays of withholding information is just not acceptable, and it's no surprise to me that the former Scottish Information Commissioner, Rosemary Agnew, has ordered ministers to improve their performance. A parliamentarian surely was with questions and asked herself, does this SNP-led Scottish Government have a transparency problem or just a code of secrecy? I believe that, frankly, it does, and it must now take responsibilities for its actions and address the concerns with address within the open letter. Only last week, my colleague, Jamie Greene, also pressed the Scottish Government on this matter during topical questions. He asked the Scottish Government what action it takes to comply with freedom of information requests and instead of being given a direct answer, God forbid, the minister provided a long list of statistics. In fact, Joe FitzPatrick argued that the number of FOI requests had spiked dramatically as they had received more requests in 2017 than they had in the whole of 2007. Probably because that is the level of secrecy and the only way that people feel that they can get information. He also stated that in recent years that their performance is consistently better than the 61 per cent that was achieved under the last full year of the previous administration. Well, not really. They are failing to answer their requests and it is not surprising that the members of this Government look uncomfortable in their benches. I believe that moving forward, the Scottish Government must accept responsibility and take action on the serious concerns that are raised. It is unacceptable that they use the legislation to undermine openness and accountability. It simply cannot continue in a mature democracy and I would like to urge my speech today to urge the Government to admit its failings, request a review and then get on with the day job which is answering the questions and dealing with the problems in Scotland. Thank you. The last speaker in the open debate is Richard Leonard. Thanks, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I begin as well by thanking Neil Findlay for submitting this motion and securing time for this important debate into the way the Scottish Government is dealing with requests under the Freedom of Information of Scotland Act 2002? The very virtues of openness which lie at the heart of this legislation have been exchanged in practice for vices of secrecy so that what we are witnessing are conscious and deliberate acts of political concealment and supported tonight by the total silence of SNP MSPs. I say to the Scottish Government and to those members that it is no good talking of freedom of information and open and accessible. It is no good the Government saying that it adheres to the principles of freedom of information legislation if its actions prove otherwise. Clearly, it is Parliament's job to scrutinise and to hold to account the Government and it is the Government's job to defend its record, but what we are facing is a Government whose first instinct is to tell members of this Parliament as little as possible and it is this first instinct that journalists are also objecting to. Straightforward parliamentary questions are met with evasion, a lack of detail, members being sent off on wild goose chases or being forced to submit FOI requests. Just last month I asked the Government a legitimate constituency question. I asked what consideration it had given in the last five years to taking the operations of the Grainsmouth oil refinery into public ownership. The answer that I got from the energy minister was that there were 20 billion barrels of oil in the North Sea supporting 125,000 jobs in Scotland and that the Government was supportive of investment that is consistent with its economic strategy. No direct answer to a straightforward and legitimate direct question in the public interest. Any administration committed to open and transparent Government and at ease with itself would routinely publish agendas and minutes of meetings as a matter of course, with any information that should not be in the public domain for whatever reason redacted and the reason for the redaction published again as a matter of course. We may not expect official reports, standard records of Government internal and external meetings with outside commercial interests. We would simply expect minutes in the words of Dick Crossman, minutes impersonal, dry, flat and precise. But it is entirely right for the accountability of the Executive to Parliament and so to the people that we have access to sufficient information so that the people can form and make reasoned judgments. So that it is wrong that we now have a situation where ministers are holding meetings with civil servants present where no minutes have been taken. You cannot govern properly and democratically by unminuted fireside chats in the gentlemen's clubs of Edinburgh. If we want to lead the way, if we want to be open and transparent, the Scottish Government must cease the practice of ministers holding meetings at which there are no notes and no minutes because it stands in conclusion that tonight has revealed the Scottish Government, the First Minister, the Cabinet Secretary and now SNP backbench MPs on one side and the sovereign Parliament, the press and the people on the other. I ask the SNP Government in all sincerity is that where you want to be or is it time for you to square your conscience and your conduct with your words? I call on Joe FitzPatrick to respond to this debate around seven minutes, please, minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to speak in this debate and thank Neil Finlay for bringing it to the chamber. It allows me to address some of the points in the motion and highlight the Government's achievements in its effort to build a culture of openness and transparency across Scotland. I think that most of the points which have been raised in the chamber I have already covered in my speech however there was the point that Monica Lennon and Andy Wightman made about disclosure logs is not one that I was intending on covering. I don't think we've taken anything off the website so I don't think we've removed any information but it's and I know that it's not something that is a statutory requirement but it is something that I will take away and look at because I could see the advantages of that. I'll go and look at it. It wasn't something I had in my notes to cover so I will look at that. I think that as a country we can be proud of our record on freedom of information. In her special report published in April the former Scottish Information Commissioner stated that since the introduction of the Freedom of Information Scotland Act 2002, Scotland has put itself ahead of the international field and our public records with the Government. I'm grateful that the minister mentions the previous commissioner in his remarks just now. Why did the previous commissioner describe the Government Ministers as rude? I will come on to some of the circumstances around the information commissioner's intervention and that will be covered later. That's where we are in terms of international field. Our public records legislation demands the highest standards o'r ddaithol i ddynorthuurau yn rysgfaith i gaeladau ymwneud. Felly, yn rysgfaith o'r ddaithol i ddaithol bethau o'r ddaithol, sefoi'r lleoliadol a'r ddaithol lleol i ddaithol, a'r bobbylch hefyd i ddodol iddyn nhw i dd insecioidau eu gwirio, ac i ddynion gwnewch i ddynion gwneud iawn i defnyddio ar gyfer rwyf o ddag mewn cwestio eich gorffod lleol aeth ddaithol yn mynd i poweithio yn siŵr. I can assure members that we are engaging with the office of the Scottish Information Commissioner to meet the high standards that are quite rightly expected of us. I will probably take to cover some of the points that— Neil Findlay. The commissioner's report said that, on failure to respond, the commissioner received 10 failure to respond appeals, but ministers reported that there were none. How did that happen? Joe FitzPatrick. I would need to look at the specifics of the numbers, but, over the years, I want to talk about why we have perhaps not performed quite as well as we would hope to perform, and I hope that colleagues recognise my acknowledgement that we are not where we want to be. Over the years, the volume request has increased substantially, so we have now over 2,000 information requests being received annually. Even so, we are managing to respond to 1,674 responses in 2015, 1,557 in 2016. Those figures compare to only 684 responses that were issued on time in the last full year of the previous administration in 2006. In recent months, there has been a significant spike of requests to the Scottish Government. As Mr Mountain said, by April of this year, we had received more requests in 2017 than we had received in the whole of 2007. With the best will in the world, that will inevitably put strain on resources. In spite of that increase in workload, 76 per cent of responses were issued in time in 2016, which compares favourably to the 61 per cent that was achieved under the last full year of the previous administration. More requests and more responded on time. To clarify, performance is better, but I recognise that it is not good enough, and that is why, as I have said, we are working to improve it. Does the minister not understand that, if he answers parliamentary questions properly, the number of FOIs will go down? The reason why it is spiking is because we get absolute dross back in parliamentary answers. To turn to the policy framework, our aim as a Government is to keep our FOI legislation up to date to ensure that it operates effectively for both applicants and public authorities. The latest major addition, the 2013 amendment act, improved and strengthened the legislation, paved the way for the lifespan of key exemptions to be reduced from 30 years to 15 years, the shortest in the UK, giving journalists in Scotland access to information such as Cabinet minutes much earlier than their London-based counterparts. The Government has also extended the coverage of the act to numerous organisations that deliver public services, including local authority arms length trusts and private prisons, a power that was never used by the previous administration. The 2013 act also ensures that new public bodies such as the Scottish Fiscal Commission are covered subject to FOISA from day 1. I want to quickly talk about the comparison between the legislation here in Scotland and the legislation in the UK. There is a wide recognition that our legislation is much stronger. For instance, the UK act contains far more wide-ranging veto powers than our act. Powers that have never been used here but have been repeatedly used by the Westminster Government. A prime example that is very relevant to this Parliament would be the fact that the Minutes of the Cabinet sub-committee on devolution, prior to setting up this Parliament, were withheld on the basis of that veto. Would the minister not want to address the six separate points in the letter, rather than talking about Westminster, please? Jo FitzPatrick? I will come to the point of the letter. However, today's motion also refers to the cost limit of £600, which is one of the points in the letter. It is important to point out that, although the £600 has remained the same as has the £15 per hour has also remained unchanged over that time. That means that the cost limit has much the same effect now as it did back in 2005, i.e. a request can be refused only if it requires more than 40 hours' work. The Scottish legislation compares favourably to the UK where, although the cost limit is also £600, it is calculated at £25 an hour, so the UK Government routinely rejects a request on cost after only 24-hour work. There is a major difference in terms of the workload that is required prior to the cost cap being used. I am over my time and I have some other points to end. Mr Scott made the point about continuing to cover some of the points from the journalists that I want to cover. Finally, in comparison between the Scottish FOI practice and the UK—this is important, because this is about getting information at all—the stats for the UK, published by the Cabinet Office show that it responds to only 63 per cent of requests where it holds relevant information, which compares to 85 per cent here in Scotland. One of the important things that I think that we are doing, which I hope will help journalists going forward, is in terms of proactive release, so we are committed to proactively publishing information wherever possible, which means that members of the journalists and members of this Parliament and members of the public can access that information without even asking for an FOI. Whether that is engagement, travel and gifts, there is a whole raft of Government spending that is all automatically available and proactively released. That is a very important part of our open data strategy, which helps to ensure that Scotland meets internationally high standards of publication. Turning directly to the journalist's letter, I note the concerns that the journalists who are referred to in the motion raised. Journalists exercise a central role in an open and accountable democracy. All information requests are handled in accordance with our guidance, which is in the public domain. Obviously, if journalists are dissatisfied with any aspect of requests or review handling like any other requests, there is a clear route of appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner. The Scottish Information Commissioner's intervention concerning our performance in terms of timeliness demonstrates the strength of our legislation in that respect. To respond to Andy Wightman's point about—obviously, the letter went to the members of the committee rather than the Government directly—we would address those concerns without the need for anyone's intervention. My office has contacted Paul Holleran of the NUJ to that end. I do not want to defend the fact that the Information Commissioner said that our timeliness was not good enough. As I said before, we are working on that, but I will engage with the NUJ to try to understand their particular concerns. As I said, the role that they play in a democracy is important, and I need to recognise that. You must bring your remarks to a close, minister. The motion also referred to, and the journalist's letter, to ministerial meetings. I can assure members that the Scottish Government fully complies with all record management practices and policies, including those that are set in the ministerial code. The code is clear that formal meetings should be recorded, setting out the reasons for meeting the names of those attending and the interests that are represented. On a monthly list of engagements carried out by ministers, it has already proactively published something that never happened before, so people did not know what was there. I signed the First Commencement Order of Scotland's lobbying act yesterday, paving the way for the preparation for the lobbying register to go live in January. I think that that is very important in terms of that information. The purpose of the act is to increase public transparency by establishing a register to contain details relating to lobbying by paid consultants and in-house lobbyists with ministers and members. I think that a lot of that data is already in the public domain. You must bring your remarks to a close, minister. Given that we have a Parliament of minorities, it is important that that transparency is extended to other members of the Parliament. I had hope to talk about open government partnership, where we are continuing to strive. Our aim is to use those tools to try to increase public participation and to increase transparency and move towards the aim of an open and accessible Government through our legislation best practice. Our wider civil engagement will continue to drive that ambition to be a more open and more transparent Government. Point of order, Edward Mountain. One of the problems that we have had tonight is the fact that, yet again, no answers have been given to the questions. Surely the point of asking questions is to get answers, and if we have specific answers to freedom of information requests, surely the minister would accept that there would not be quite so many. That was not a point of order, Mr Mountain. That is a matter for the ministerial code, and I would suggest that you would write to the Government once you have looked again at what was said in the debate. I close this meeting.