Planning appeals costs: EIR request

Information requested

1. The number of Aberdeen, Aberdeen City, Moray, Angus council planning appeal application decisions overruled by the Scottish Government since 2017-18, with a breakdown by council and fiscal year.

2. The total amount (in £) the Scottish Government has spent on overruling these decisions in each local authority since 2017-18, with a breakdown by council and fiscal year.

Response

If I might firstly explain that, because, the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIR’s), 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.

I enclose the information you requested in relation to question “1”.

 

17-18
Authority		Appeals Decided	Appeals Allowed	Percentage Allowed
Aberdeen City Council		6	3	50%
Aberdeenshire Council		16	6	35%
Angus Council		2	2	100%
Moray Council		2	2	100%
2018-19
Authority		Appeals Decided	Appeals Allowed	Percentage Allowed
Aberdeen City Council		6	3	50%
Aberdeenshire Council		23	6	38%
Angus Council		0	n/a	n/a
Moray Council		1	1	100%

2019-20
Authority	Appeals Decided	Appeals Allowed	Percentage Allowed
Aberdeen City Council	4	1	25%
Aberdeenshire Council	14	8	57%
Angus Council	3	1	33%
Moray Council	3	1	33%
2020-21
Authority	Appeals Decided	Appeals Allowed	Percentage Allowed
Aberdeen City Council	7	3	43%
Aberdeenshire Council	19	12	63%
Angus Council	0	n/a	n/a
Moray Council	1	1	100%

2021-22
Authority	Appeals Decided	Appeals Allowed	Percentage Allowed
Aberdeen City Council	7	4	57%
Aberdeenshire Council	15	9	60%
Angus Council	1	0	0%
Moray Council	0	n/a	n/a

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.

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 Scottish Government does not have the exact information you have requested in “2” because this information is not collected by the Scottish Government.

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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about planning applications and appeals clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

We are however in a position to provide you with a breakdown of all the spend with DPEA relating to all works carried out. To provide a bit of context to this spend I would confirm as follows:

1. Appeal work tends to form about 40% of the work we deliver under this total budget
2. Of that 40% approximately half of these cases are planning appeals
3. This budget covers casework, not just planning appeals, for every planning authority in Scotland and not just the authorities listed in your request
 

	PEA Spe work, £
2017-18	3,371,762
2018-19	3,360,171
2019-20	3,607,439
2020-21	3,609,098
2021-22	3,783,863

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.