The SNP has been criticised for "extraordinary secrecy" after heavily redacting documents outlining its involvement in the creation of the Scottish Prison Service's (SPS) controversial new trans prisoner policy.
The policy, which was reviewed in 2023 after controversy surrounding trans prisoner Isla Bryson, allows Scottish prisoners to self-identify in Scotland's jails. In England, any prisoner with male reproductive organs is housed in a men's detention centre.
Fresh guidance on where Scottish prisoners are placed was published in December 2023 following a review, meaning that all cases are now subject to a risk assessment.
But women's rights campaigners criticised it as there was no outright ban on trans women with violent histories being housed with other females.
The Scottish Government has claimed that their planned gender reforms which would allow trans people to legally change their gender without a medical certificate, blocked by Westminster, have nothing to do with the prison policy. They have claimed the SPS is independent of the Scottish Government.
But when the Scottish Express used Freedom of Information laws to request all "briefing notes, correspondence, including internal and minutes held by the Scottish Government in regards to the review of the 2014 gender identity and reassignment policy by the Scottish Prison Service", the Government returned the notes with 1,712 separate redactions in 27 email chains.
The only information provided was the organisation of meetings.
Several briefings were published, but the most recent one - from the date the guidance was published - was redacted in full.
Responding to the findings, shadow justice secretary Russell Findlay told the Scottish Daily Express: "Even by the pitiful standards of SNP secrecy, more than 1,000 redactions in one FOI response is staggering.
"The nationalists tried to impose their dangerous gender self-ID policy regardless of the wellbeing of vulnerable women in custody, but it blew up when male-bodied rapist Isla Bryson was sent to a women’s prison.
"Their new trans prisoner policy is just a re-heat of the old one which might help to explain this pathological opposition to transparency."
Meanwhile, policy group Murray Blackburn Mackenzie added: "These heavily redacted responses reinforce the extraordinary level of secrecy around the development of this policy.
"The SPS is now limiting the data it publishes on the placement of trans-identified prisoners. After publishing the policy in early December, it withheld the full results of its consultation for 12 weeks.
"It also withheld its operational guidance for 12 weeks, and deliberately engineered the policy commencement date so it wouldn't be required to release this in advance under Freedom of Information law.
"Given the level of legitimate public interest in this issue, we think Holyrood's Criminal Justice Committee needs to come back to this topic as a matter of urgency and demand much greater transparency."
A Scottish Prison Service spokesperson said: "We have been open and transparent in publishing this policy, along with several other documents, ahead of its implementation, and then also publishing the operational guidance given to staff, once it had been implemented.
“We are taking an individualised approach to the admission, placement, and management of transgender people, and will carefully consider a range of factors, including offending history, with a particular focus on violence against women and girls, when assessing risk.
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"No transgender women, with a history of violence against women and girls, who presents a risk to women, will be placed in the female estate.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson added: "SPS have been open and transparent in publishing their policy and the operational guidance for staff. The policy makes clear that if a transgender woman with a history of violence against women and girls presents a risk of harm, they will be admitted and accommodated in the male estate."
