RESAS funding settlement 2023/24: EIR release

Information requested

Correspondence between RESAS and senior officers of the James Hutton Institute, BioSS and Centres of Expertise, regarding cuts to 2023/24 funding (including the Strategic Research Programme, Underpinning Capacity and Centres of Expertise), from 1 April 2022 to 30 June 2023.

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.

Response to your request

I attach a copy of most of the information you requested.

Further Information

A number of the attached documents refer to SEFARI Director's Executive Committee (DEC) meetings. Please note, a verbal announcement about the potential budget settlement was made at the 19 December 2022 meeting, and subsequent discussions took place at the 30 January 2023 meeting.

Exception(s)

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.

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.

FOI 202300364133 - Information Released - Documents 1 to 14

File type

40 page PDF

File size

2.7 MB