Freedom of information and the National Archives of Scotland

Role of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland

• The Scottish Information Commissioner and the Keeper of the Records of Scotland must be consulted before Scottish ministers issue or revise the Section 61 Code of Practice on Records Management (See section 61 of the Act)
  
  
• The Scottish Information Commissioner must consult the Keeper of the Records of Scotland before issuing a practice recommendation to a Scottish public authority in relating to its conformity with the Section 61 Code of Practice (See section 44 of the Act)
  
  
• The Keeper of the Records of Scotland has issued a generic Model Action Plan to help authorities reach compliance with the Section 61 Code of Practice.

Special provisions relating to the National Archives of Scotland

• Information transferred to the Keeper which he makes available for inspection and (in so far is practicable) copying, is covered by the ‘otherwise accessible’ exemption of the FOISA. This means that information transferred to the NAS for archival purposes which is both open and catalogued is exempt information (see section 25 of the FOISA). Such information is made available for consultation in the usual way in the NAS’s search rooms.
  
  
• If the NAS receives a request for information which has been transferred to the Keeper by a Scottish public authority and which has not been designated as open information for the purposes of the FOISA, the Keeper must send a copy of the request to the transferring authority as soon as possible. The authority must then make a decision about whether or not the information can be released and inform the Keeper, who must then inform the applicant. Because of the need to consult the transferring authority, the NAS is given 30 working days to reply to such requests rather than the usual 20 (see sections 10(2) and 22 of the Act).
  
  
• The NAS has its own statutory fee-setting arrangements and is therefore excluded from the FOISA fees regulations (section 9(7)) when charging for research and copying of archive material. The NAS’s fees and charges are available on this website.

Information held by the NAS from organisations or individuals not subject to the FOISA

Private records
Information which the NAS holds on behalf of organisations or individuals not covered by the FOISA (eg private companies, private individuals) is not subject to the FOISA. If, however, such information has either been gifted to, or purchased by the NAS, it is not held on behalf of another person or organisation and it is therefore subject to the FOISA. Where material has been gifted subject to terms and conditions which seek to limit access to the material, it may be necessary to consider whether the ‘confidentiality’ exemption in section 36 of the FOISA applies.

UK government records
The NAS holds a certain amount of information on behalf of UK government departments operating in Scotland and on behalf of some cross-border authorities. In these cases, where such information has not been designated as open information, the UK Freedom of Information Act applies and the Keeper must refer requests to see it to The National Archives (TNA), London. This is because such material is held by the NAS under section 3(8) of the Public Records Act 1958 and section 5(1) of the Public Records (Scotland) Act 1937, which effectively means that they have been transferred to the NAS by the UK Keeper of the Public Records. A concordat between the Scottish Government and the Department for Constitutional Affairs sets out how this arrangement works. Information which has been designated as open and is catalogued is deemed ‘otherwise accessible’ and is made available for consultation in the usual way in the NAS’s search rooms.

Pre-devolution records
The NAS holds many pre-devolution records of the former Scottish Office which are subject to the Transfer of Property etc. (Scottish Ministers) Order 1999 (Statutory Instrument 1104 of 1999), which is available on the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website. Most of the information in these records which has not been designated as open information is subject to the FOISA but small number of the records were held or used wholly or mainly in connection with the exercise of reserved functions and the information in these is subject to the UK Freedom of Information Act. An agreement between the Scottish Government and the Scotland Office sets out how this arrangement works. Information which has been designated as open and is catalogued is deemed ‘otherwise accessible’ and is made available for consultation in the usual way in the NAS’s search rooms.

Catalogues and indexes
In order to make the information that we hold more accessible the NAS has recently completed an electronic retro-conversion of many of our archive catalogues. These are now available on-line through our electronic catalogue. This process is on-going and corrections, amendments and additions are constantly being undertaken in order to provide accurate and useful finding aids.

More information about how freedom of information affects information held by archives can be found on the Scottish Information Commissioner’s website.

The National Archives of Scotland publication scheme

Freedom of information, the NAS and records management
The NAS has a dual role with regard to records management under FOI.

• An advisory role, based on the Keeper’s responsibilities under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1994 and our statutory relationship with Scottish government bodies. More information about Scottish records legislation can be found in our Legislation section.
• As an authority subject to Scottish the FOISA, a responsibility to ensure that the NAS’s own records management practices comply with the section 61 Code.

Advisory role

• More advice on records management under the FOISA [link to this section below] can be found in these webpages.
  
  
• Advice on records management in general can be found in our Records Management area of this website.
  
  
• Advice to depositors also contains information about how the NAS can help specific sectors.

The NAS’s own records management
The NAS has a professional records manager and a records management unit which co-ordinates the storage, issuing and transfer of files around the organisation. The NAS’s records management policy, file plan [Acrobat PDF 303 KB, new window], and records management manual [Acrobat PDF 2331 KB, new window] are available for public consultation.

[Back to contents]

[Previous section]

[Next section]