Planning Hubs and Planning apprenticeships information: EIR release

Information requested

• All briefings given to Scottish Ministers since the appointment of John Swinney as First Minister regarding Planning Hubs and Planning apprenticeships
• All notes of meetings since the appointment of John Swinney as First Minister regarding Planning Hubs and Planning apprenticeships
• All Scottish Government correspondence regarding Planning Hubs and Planning apprenticeships since the appointment of John Swinney as First Minister

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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because the below exceptions apply to some of the information you requested:

1. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. Some of the information you have requested is publicly available here:

High Level Group meeting – June 2024 – Note of meeting:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/high-level-group-on-planning-performance-minutes-june-2024/

High Level Group meeting - 2024 - September - Note of Meeting and Investing in Planning - Next Steps: 

High Level Group on Planning Performance note of meeting: 12 September 2024 - gov.scot

High Level Group meeting – 2024 – December. Note of meeting:

Planning performance: High Level Group minutes - December 2024 - gov.scot

National Planning Improvement Insights Report: Planning for Hydrogen

If you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website then please contact me again and I will send paper copies.

2. 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. Personal data has been redacted from the relevant attachments and will show as [redacted] within.

3. An exception under regulation 10(4)(d) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. This regulation applies to material which is still in the course of completion, unfinished documents or incomplete data. 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government However, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that unfinished or incomplete information which is still being worked on or is under active consideration is not disclosed when it might misinform or mislead the public. You may wish to note that some of the information withheld under this exception will be made publicly available in the near future.

4. An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) applies to some of the information you have requested because it is internal communication between Scottish Government Ministers and/or officials. 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, there is a greater public interest in allowing a private space within which officials can provide free and frank advice and views to Ministers and protect the process of Policy development. Ministers and officials need to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications. 

For ease I have attached a list of the information being released in response to your request. In some instances the information you have requested is contained within wider documentation outwith the scope of your request. In these instances you will see that I have highlighted that the attachment is an “EXTRACT ” It may be that some information, not directly related, has also been retained to provide context.

For clarity, you may wish to note that in order to focus the results of your request, I have not included the following information identified in my searches in this response:

1. Correspondence which is solely about logistics of setting up meetings ie confirming dates and times.

2. Basic covering and/or acknowledgement emails to some of the documentation released unless there are comments contained within.

I should explain that in providing the information requested I have not split the information into your 3 separate elements of your request. This is because some of the information has considerable crossover between the various elements. For example, where an update or information note has been submitted to Scottish Ministers, although it may not necessarily be considered a “briefing” it could reasonably be considered as advice to brief Ministers while also falling under the third part of your request asking for Scottish Government correspondence in relation to the planning hubs and apprenticeship programme. Therefore, I have provided a combined list of the documentation for release to present the information in a way that is simple to follow. Although not clearly broken down into the various sections for the reasons explained above I have however grouped the relevant information together to reflect the 3 partsof your requests as outlined below:

Nos 1- 32 contains briefings to Minister’s as well as supporting information which could be considered briefing (some of this information could also be considered “correspondence” as per third part of your request but has only been included once)

Nos 33-35 contain notes of meetings that fall within scope of your request (further meeting notes are publicly available and linked above)

Nos 36 – 62 contain all other correspondence that falls within the scope of your request

It should also be noted that some of the information released with regard to the planning apprenticeship programme and planning hub is now out of date as proposals have evolved and/or delivery has progressed. In particular, this means that some information about roles, grade, costs and working arrangements is no longer accurate. Similarly, delivery plans, progress and challenges have also evolved.

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.

EIR 202500447903 - Information Released - Documents

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