The SNP has accused a person who has persistently asked the Scottish Government for information of "wasting taxpayers' money on ridiculous fishing missions".
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has revealed that one person was responsible for 13.5% of all Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to the Government.
The person submitted 85 requests, six of which went to internal review and one which went to the Information Commissioner for appeal, at a total cost of more than £23,000.
Ms Sturgeon, whose wide remit includes FoI legislation, was responding to a question by fellow SNP MSP Jamie Hepburn.
While the identity of the requester was not revealed in Ms Sturgeon's answer, First Minister Alex Salmond told Parliament last month that "a Labour researcher is responsible for over 14% of all Freedom of Information requests".
Ms Sturgeon said: "Our records show the anonymous requester referred to by the First Minister has submitted 13.5% of all of the requests received by the Scottish Government between the start of the summer recess on June 29 and November 6, 2012."
Mr Hepburn said: "Access to information is important but this one person is just wasting taxpayers' money.
"Everyone has the right to use Freedom of Information but there is also a responsibility to use it properly, not waste taxpayers' money on ridiculous fishing missions."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article