Full costs of Deposit Return Scheme court case with Biffa: EIR release

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.


Information requested

Full costs, plus a breakdown of this, of the Scottish Government's deposit return scheme court case with Biffa.

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.

To date, the Scottish Government has spent £167,812.00 on costs related to the legal case brought by Biffa against the Scottish Ministers. The following table shows the costs broken down by financial year:

Financial Year

Amount

2023/24

£5,796.00

2024/25

£162,016.00

Total

£167,812.00

It may help if I explain that legal advice may be sought in both internal and external capacities and that Scottish Government staff do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of time spent providing advice on particular matters. It is therefore not possible to provide a further breakdown on the total cost and/or expenditure figure accrued by the Scottish Government with regards to legal advice received regarding the ‘Biffa Case’.

The Scottish Government, like all Governments, is necessarily involved in litigation given the range and importance of its responsibilities.

The outlays incurred in litigation are, like all other costs of Government, subject to rules about public finance decision-making and accountability.

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.

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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