Grants received by specific councillor under the Forestry Grant Scheme: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for the following information:

1. The total number and value of grants received by Councillor Ross Lambie under the Forestry Grant Scheme since 1 April 2019. Please provide all grants received broken down by each financial year

Response

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.

1. The total number and value of grants received by Councillor Ross Lambie under the Forestry Grant Scheme since 1 April 2019. Please provide all grants received broken down by each financial year.

Councillor Ross Lambie has one Forestry Grant Scheme contract, Ref: 18FGS29238 Broadford Farm Woodland Creation.

The value of grants paid in each financial year from 1 April 2019 was as follows:

Initial planting payment

2019/2020 - £18,451.20

2020/2021 - £95,325.20

Annual maintenance payment

2020/2021 - £1,740.42

2021/2022 - £13,430.34

2022/2023 - £13,430.34

2023/2024 - £13,430.34

2024/2025 - £13,430.34

About FOI

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