Internal review of Police Scotland's Freedom of Information processes

Police Scotland recently undertook an assurance review of responses released under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

The service’s Information Disclosure team receive in the region of 1,800 requests every year. Requests often necessitate the provision of statistical information which is often contained within spreadsheets.

As standard, and in order to ensure openness and transparency, all FOI responses are published on a Disclosure Log on the Police Scotland website, which currently holds response from 1 January 2022 to August 2023.

The Disclosure Log was taken offline while the review was carried out.

The review has now been completed, and of the 2,054 responses analysed, it was determined 195 contained an attachment. Additional work was undertaken and it has been confirmed no personal data has been released in any of these documents.

As such, Police Scotland has incurred no data breaches in contravention of the Data Protection Act 2018.

The Disclosure Log is now live on our website.

Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Houston
Professionalism and Assurance