The Drum has learned that the Scottish Government has rejected the Freedom of Information request which was submitted on the PR roster.

Over the last month, some of the agencies that had made it onto the roster had complained that the leaking of information about their framework submissions would be detrimental to their businesses and allow competitors to see their businesses.
The Government has taken this on board and turned the request down.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government told The Drum: “I can confirm the information requested under FOI was withheld primarily on the grounds its disclosure would be likely to substantially prejudice the commercial interests of the contracted suppliers.”

They continued to say that disclosure would prejudice substantially or be likely to prejudice substantially the effective conduct of public affairs.

Scott Douglas, who placed the request, reacted: “As a PR professional I have concerns about the fairness and validity of the current roster system and wanted to be sure of my ground before seeking a meeting with procurement officials within the Scottish Government.

“I wasn’t surprised my original FOI request unsettled some people in the PR fraternity but I am totally astonished at this blanket refusal from the Scottish Government to release any detail of the successful submissions.”

Douglas continued: “I know many people in the industry share my concerns that the roster is being inappropriately touted as ‘must use’ service for public and government bodies. That would inevitably prevent non-roster agencies from winning work.
“Now we are also being denied the chance to find out exactly why those roster agencies were chosen in the first place. Given that they’ll be getting first dibs on huge amounts of publicly funded work, this can hardly be considered transparent or accountable government.

“During all my correspondence with the Government I have made it clear I totally accepted commercially sensitive information would be removed from any FOI response. For them to suggest the entire submissions are commercially sensitive is laughable. Needless to say I will be appealing immediately against this FOI decision.”

FOI requests have also been submitted for the design, research and marketing communications framework applications too.