John Swinney defends Scottish Government FOI record

First Minister John Swinney has defended the Scottish government's handling of freedom of information requests following accusations of obstruction from the Scottish Information Commissioner, David Hamilton. The dispute centres on the government's refusal to release legal advice related to an ethics probe into former first minister Nicola Sturgeon. Mr Hamilton described the government's justifications for withholding the information as "preposterous and unacceptable", stating he can no longer trust ministers to handle such data unsupervised.

Commissioner Hamilton is currently consulting lawyers concerning potential fresh court action. This follows previous steps taken by the Commissioner during a long-running dispute over information disclosure from the inquiry that cleared Ms Sturgeon of breaching the ministerial code.

In response, Mr Swinney cited a 97% performance rate for meeting freedom of information deadlines over the past month as evidence of the government's competence. He argued that the current case is complex due to the need to comply with court orders intended to protect the identities of complainers in the 2020 criminal case against Alex Salmond.

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