Briefing provided to First Minister, Deputy First Minister and Housing Minister regarding offshore wind: EIR release

Information requested

1. All correspondence between Stephen Flynn and Scottish Ministers (and anyone in their offices) or Special Advisers between 3 October 2024 and the present date inclusive. This correspondence should include WhatsApps, instant messages, phone calls, emails, meetings (either in person or on zoom/teams). 

2. Any briefing documents/notes or information provided to the First Minister, Deputy First Minister or the Housing Minister which mention the terms ‘Green Volt’, ‘Flotation Energy’, ‘Stephen Flynn’, ‘Allan MacAskill’ and ‘offshore wind’ for their visit to the Shetland Islands on 7 October 2024. 

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.  

1. You requested correspondence between Stephen Flynn and Scottish Ministers (and anyone in their offices) or Special Advisers between 3 October 2024 and 7 October 2024.  

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. 

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 has no record of correspondence between Stephen Flynn and Scottish Ministers (and anyone in their offices) or Special Advisers between the dates you requested. 

2. You requested briefing documents/notes or information provided to the First Minister, Deputy First Minister or the Housing Minister which mention the terms ‘Green Volt’, ‘Flotation Energy’, ‘Stephen Flynn’, ‘Allan MacAskill’ and ‘offshore wind’ for their visit to the Shetland Islands on 7 October 2024. 

No information was provided to the First Minister, Deputy First Minister or Housing Minister for their visit to the Shetland Islands on 7 October 2024 which mention the terms ‘Green Volt’, ‘Flotation Energy’, ‘Stephen Flynn’, ‘Allan MacAskill’. 

Annex A  contains the briefing provided which mentioned ‘offshore wind’. Some of the information is redacted under section 33 (1) (b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 – Commercial Interest, as detailed below: 

Commercial interests and the economy 

(1) Information is exempt information if - 

(b)its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the commercial interests of any person (including, without prejudice to that generality, a Scottish public authority). 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI - 202400435367 - Information released - Annex A

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