Seòmar agus comataidhean

The information requested islisted as follows.

Time	Pick Up	Via	Drop Off	Passengers
1145	Strichen		Inverurie	Alex Salmond
1700	Inverurie	Special Adviser’s Home, Aberdeen (Geoff Aberdein dropped off)	Marcliffe Hotel	Alex Salmond Geoff Aberdein Hannah Bardell (Constituency Assistant)
1825	Marcliffe Hotel		Strichen	Alex Salmond

 

No otherjourneys were made on this day.

As a result of the unusualamount of public interest in the First Minister’s travel to this meeting, thePermanent Secretary has considered what use was made of the Government CarService on this occasion. He has noted that it is commonplace for civilservants, including special advisers, to travel with ministers in governmentcars, in order to assist ministers to use time spent travelling to progressgovernment business. He is satisfied that the use made of the Government CarService in this case was consistent with such general practice and was bothappropriate and pragmatic.

Information in the formrequested is not held by the Scottish Government.

The Chief Planner metrepresentatives of the Trump Organization on 4 December 2007.At the close of the meeting the Chief Planner telephoned Mr Salmond, in hiscapacity as MSP for Gordon, as a courtesy to say the meeting had taken placeand said that all discussion of potential ministerial action would be passed tome in line with proper procedure. The First Minister was not party to thedecision to call in the application.

The Permanent Secretary has made clear, as part of his consideration of the behaviour of civil servants,that he received an assurance from the Chief Planner that he has, at no time, been instructed by any party toact improperly and that he feels he has applied the same rigour in thisparticular case, in terms of following due process and having regard to the expectedstandards of conduct, as he would do in any other planning case.

Consequently, there would beno reason for the Permanent Secretary to consider the behaviour of any ministerin this matter, even if it were not the case that the terms of the Ministerial Codemake clear that the Permanent Secretary has no role in making judgements aboutthe behaviour of ministers in relation to the code.

Freedom of Informationresponses will be published as soon as possible. Priority has been given toanswering parliamentary questions and to supporting relevant appearances at theLocal Government and Communities Committee.

I refer the member to the answerto question S3W-7701 on 20 December 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

I refer the member to the answerto question S3W-8107 on 22 January 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The minute of the meetingrecords the main points discussed by the participants. It was not necessary toproduce a verbatim record.

The Chief Planner regularlyreceives telephone calls from MSPs about planning matters. Information aboutthe number of calls is not held by the Scottish Government because a formal recordis not routinely produced for every call received, as many involve simply theprovision of factual information to MSPs about planning processes. The ChiefPlanner has given information to the Local Government and Communities Committeeon a range of contacts he has had with MSPs. The official report is availableon the Parliament’s website at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/lgc/or-08/lg08-0102.htm#Col425.

Information in the formrequested is not held by the Scottish Government.