Papers produced regarding Affordable Housing Investment Benchmarks working group: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for all papers provided to (i.e. produced by the Scottish Government) and received (by the Scottish Government authored by the members) of the Affordable Housing Investment Benchmarks Working Group. This should include, but not be limited to the:
1. Scottish Government information paper March 2021
2. Discussion paper 6 April Affordable Housing Investment Benchmarks
3. evidence gathered paper April 2021

Please also indicate the target date for publication of the agreement of the Working Group, and/or publication of any agreement.

Your response of 2 August 2021 to the clarification request confirmed you are requesting the following documents which have been included in the information released – iterations of papers where these were provided to the group, papers produced by the Scottish Government for sub-group meetings and specific members of the group, and the agreed agendas and notes of meetings (including for subgroup meetings).

Response

Attached is a copy of all of the information requested. 

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested. Personal information has been redacted from some documents. This exemption 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 exemption.

An exemption under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA also applies to some of the information you have requested (parts of documents 34 and 50).

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 due to the likelihood of substantial prejudice to commercial interests.

One paper referred to by a partner on the group is available here Understanding the Scottish rural economy: research paper - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you.

One paper has also been included in the release outwith FOISA, the Scottish Government’s response to ALACHO’s letter issued on 27 August 2021.

The final version of the report has been issued to all members of the working group and will be published on the Scottish Government website.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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.