Media interview regarding the Pentland Hills Eagle disappearance: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01188
Date received: 19 April 2018
Date responded: 4 May 2018

Information requested

Can you please advise whether or not there was an email or formal written request submitted by Chris Packham or Ruth Tingay to meet with Roseanna Cunningham MSP to request a media interview regarding the Pentland Hills Eagle disappearance and, if so, when was this submission made? If the request was not made using the standard Parliamentary procedure, we would like to ask whether the request was made informally, or during an arranged meeting. If it was an arranged meeting, we would like to know who was present at that meeting

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.

First I should explain there is no standard Parliamentary procedure for requesting media interviews. Requests for interviews with Ministers are received through a variety of channels. On this occasion, following an approach from Dr Tingay, Scottish Government staff made the necessary arrangements to enable the interview to take place.

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