Publication - FOI/EIR release

Supplementary Guidance on Planning Obligations sent by Fife Council: EIR release

Published: 15 March 2021
Part of: Communities and third sector, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202000115038
Date received: 17 November 2020
Date responded: 15 December 2020

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

Information requested

Copies of the documents referred to in FOI202000108713 which were sent to the Scottish Government by Fife Council on 20 February 2018. You also requested copies of any correspondence between the Council and Scottish Ministers on the topic of the Supplementary Guidance between submission in December 2017 and the issue of the Direction in March 2018.

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.

Attached is a copy of most of the information you 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(5)(f) of the EIRs (third party interests) as been applied. This exception applies as disclosure would, or would be likely to, cause substantial prejudice to the interests of a person who provided information voluntarily to the authority. This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. Any public interest in release is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that third parties are not prejudiced when providing information voluntarily to an authority.

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