Assessment process for wind farms: EIR release

Information requested

Any documents used by Energy Consents Unit staff to assess any referred submissions for wind farm developments, including any relevant policies, processes, procedures, work instructions, guidance notes, checklists etc. or any other internal management system documents used during any part of the assessment process.

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. This is because most of the information you have requested is available from the website links I have provided in the attached PDF Pack. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the websites listed, please contact us again and we can discuss how best to give you access to the documentation (much of which comprises of many pages).

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. Where you see redactions in the PDF Pack sent in response to your request, it is because it references the name and/or contact details of junior officials in the Energy and Consents Unit whose names would not otherwise be in the public domain.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

202200298300_EiR Response

File type

45 page PDF

File size

841.6 kB