Copy of investigation evidence and documentation: EIR release

Information requested

In your letter of the 6 February on behalf of the Ballyoukan Community Group you made a request for information which we are handling under the EIRs. The other parts of the your letter will be addressed separately under other correspondence. You asked:

We request a copy of investigation evidence and documentation.

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

A copy of the internal investigation report is attached.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of 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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to that information. Regulation 10(4)(e): permits the withholding of information if its publication would involve the disclosure of internal communications.

This is a qualified exception, which requires the Scottish Government to consider carefully the balance of the public interest in publishing this information. The Scottish Government considers that disclosure of this information would be likely to inhibit the free and frank provision of advice and the free and frank exchange of views for the purposes of deliberation. There is a strong public interest in protecting the space Ministers and officials have to consider and discuss options, to ensure that full and proper consideration to policy is given. The candour of contributions to this process would be likely to be affected by officials’ assessment of whether the content of such discussion would be disclosed in the near future. This would have a negative impact on the quality of decision making, which is clearly not in the public interest. For these reasons, we consider that the public interest in withholding this information outweighs the public interest in release.

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.

FOI - 202300346005 - information release

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5 page PDF

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98.7 kB