Withdrawal of draft planning delivery advice: EIR review

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.


FOI reference: FOI/18/01091
Date received: 14 May 2018
Date responded: 6 June 2018

Information requested

Information about the Chief Planner's withdrawal of Draft Planning Delivery Advice on Housing and Infrastructure, specifically the:

  1. Number of Local Authorities who found the advice note problematic.
  2. Number of Local Authorities who saw the advice note as a positive way forward.
  3. Number of Developers who found the advice note problematic.
  4. Number of Developers who saw the advice note as a positive way forward.
  5. Number of Builders / Trade bodies who found the advice note problematic.
  6. Number of Builders / Trade bodies who saw the advice note as a positive way forward

It was clarified that you were asking for a review on the basis that you did not believe that the Scottish Government does not hold the information requested.

Response

I have reviewed our files and have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed with some modification. While the original response correctly advised that the Scottish Government did not hold the information required broken down in the format you requested it did not explain that under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

The original response did try to meet our duty to provide advice and assistance to support your enquiry as required by regulation 9(1) by providing the published analysis of the consultation responses, but it could have been made clearer that we have not captured the information in a way that answers your questions in the format you presented.

To further assist, I have attached the spreadsheet which informed Annex 1 of the Draft Planning Delivery Advice Consultation Analysis Report. You may be able to conduct your own analysis of this material to obtain the information you require by cross referencing each response against the participant breakdown (the first and fourth tab of the document). I do hope that you find it helpful.

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

Annex 1.xlsx

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference

Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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