Waste Management and Recycling Spending: EIR release

Information requested

1. How much money the Scottish Government spends on contracts relating to waste management and recycling of waste produced by the Scottish Government, broken down year-by-year since 2011?
2. How much funding Scottish Government provides to local authorities to manage waste and recycling, broken down year-by-year since 2011?

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 exception 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 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, 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.

Question 1

Please find the information requested below:

Period (FY)	Fixed Contract Fee (£)
April 2014 – March 2015	£240,320
April 2015 – March 2016	£235,782
April 2016 – March 2017	£233,074
April 2017 – March 2018	£237,029
April 2018 – March 2019	£239,853
April 2019 – March 2020	£249,788
April 2020 – March 2021	£263,060
April 2021 – March 2022	£278,948
April 2022 – March 2023	£299,325
April 2023 – March 2024	£292,034

Between 2018 – 2024, additional ad-hoc services were provided and the cost for these are listed below:

Period (FY)	Ad-Hoc Service (£)
April 2018 – March 2019	£107,150
April 2019 – March 2020	£180,116
April 2020 – March 2021	£84,742
April 2021 – March 2022	£147,709
April 2022 – March 2023	£129,730
April 2023 – March 2024	£142,436

To note, some of the information you have requested is not held by the Scottish Government. This is because we only hold information on this area dating back to 2014.

Therefore, this is a formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs confirming that the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. It is important to note that although we do not hold the information and have applied Regulation 10(4)(a) – information not held, it is a requirement that we have to apply the public interest test.

Under regulation 5(1) of the EIRs, a Scottish public authority that holds environmental information must make it available when requested to do so. This duty is not absolute. In some cases, information is excepted from disclosure, under regulations 10 and 11 of the EIRs. However, all of the exceptions in regulation 10 (and parts of regulation 11) are subject to a public interest test. To clarify, even though we do not hold the information, because we are using EIRs Exception 10(4)(a) in response to your request, we are required to apply a public interest test.

Guidance can be found in the Key Concepts section under ‘Information Not Held’ and ‘The Public Interest Test’ in the attached Scottish Information Commissioner Briefings and Guidance  document.

Further guidance on the public interest test can also be found on page 8 of the Scottish Information Commissioner guidance.

Question 2

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. This is because the Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant.
It is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on waste and recycling services, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Therefore, this is a formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs confirming that the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. It is important to note that although we do not hold the information and have applied Regulation 10(4)(a) – information not held, it is a requirement that we have to apply the public interest test.

Under regulation 5(1) of the EIRs, a Scottish public authority that holds environmental information must make it available when requested to do so. This duty is not absolute. In some cases, information is excepted from disclosure, under regulations 10 and 11 of the EIRs. However, all of the exceptions in regulation 10 (and parts of regulation 11) are subject to a public interest test. To clarify, even though we do not hold the information, because we are using EIRs Exception 10(4)(a) in response to your request, we are required to apply a public interest test.

Guidance can be found in the Key Concepts section under ‘Information Not Held’ and ‘The Public Interest Test’ in the attached Scottish Information Commissioner Briefings and Guidance document. Further guidance on the public interest test can also be found on page 8 of the Scottish Information Commissioner guidance.

You may wish to contact Local Authorities directly regarding your request and you can find information on them here: Councils | COSLA.

You also may find it helpful to note that information on Local Government finance statistics, broken down by year, can be found on the Scottish Government website here: Local government finance statistics.

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.