Tree planting expenditure: EIR release

Information requested

1. Could you supply your organisation's tree planting expenditure from each of the last five financial years, including the expected one for 25/26, with a breakdown of what the money was spent on?

2. How many saplings have been binned by Scottish Forestry, or on the orders of Scottish Forestry, in each of the last five years?

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.Could you supply your organisation's tree planting expenditure from each of the last five financial years, including the expected one for 25/26, with a breakdown of what the money was spent on?

Please find attached the latest data we hold from our monthly Forestry Grant Scheme.

The figures are for contract commitments (not spend) and the Forestry Grant Scheme options are described in the guidance here: Woodland Creation

Additional information on Scottish Forestry’s budget, activities and expenditure is published in its Annual Report and Accounts available here: Scottish Forestry - Our reports

2. How many saplings have been binned by Scottish Forestry, or on the orders of Scottish Forestry, in each of the last five years?

Scottish Forestry do not authorise sapling inspections or destruction and therefore have not binned or issued orders to bin any saplings over the last five years.

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.