The Scottish Government is apparently considering extending the statute of limitations for offences under the FOI Scotland Act.
Section 65 of FOISA. Section 65 provides that once a request has been made to an authority, it is a criminal offence for the authority, its employees or contractors to alter or destroy the information with the intention of preventing disclosure. Any such offence must be prosecuted within six months of the time when the offence was committed. In practice it is very difficult to prosecute an alleged offence within that timeframe. So the Amendment Bill would extend the period for summary prosecution.