The Access to Personal Files (Social Work) (Scotland) Regulations 1989

Exemptions from access to information from reporters to children’s panels

9.—(1) This regulation applies to information in the possession of the social work authority originating from or supplied by a Reporter to a Children’s Panel in pursuit of his statutory duties, other than information referred to in paragraph (2).

(2) This regulation does not apply to information which the individual who requests access to it is in any event entitled to receive from the Reporter to the Children’s Panel in performance of the Reporter’s statutory duties.

(3) Within 14 days of receiving a request under regulation 3 or, if later, receiving the information referred to in regulation 4, the social work authority shall in writing inform the appropriate Reporter to the Children’s Panel that request has been made and that the accessible personal information contains information to which this regulation applies.

(4) A social work authority shall, save as provided by paragraph (5), be exempted from the obligation imposed by regulation 2(1)(b) if, before the end of the 40 day period provided for by regulation 6, the Reporter informs that authority in writing that the information to which this regulation applies must not be disclosed, because its disclosure would be likely to—

(a) cause serious harm to the physical or mental health or emotional condition of the individual who is the subject of the information or any other person,

(b) disclose to the individual, who is the subject of the information, the identity of another individual (who has not consented to the disclosure of the information) either as a person to whom the information or part of it relates or as the source of the information or would enable that identity to be deduced by the individual who is the subject of the information either from the information itself or from a combination of that information and other information which the individual, who is the subject of the information, has or is likely to have, or

(c) prejudice the prevention or detection of a crime or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders (where the information is held for these purposes).

(5) If the appropriate Reporter informs the social work authority in accordance with paragraph (4) that the information to which this regulation applies must not be disclosed, the obligation imposed by regulation 2(1)(b) shall nonetheless apply to so much of the information sought by the request as can be supplied, whether by the omission of names or other particulars or otherwise, without causing such serious harm, or enabling the identity of another individual to be disclosed or deduced, or prejudicing the prevention or detection of a crime or the apprehension or the prosecution of offenders.