Guernsey Financial Services Commission forestry grant: EIR release

Information requested

Scottish Forestry has paid lots of taxpayer's money into offshore tax havens (such as in Guernsey) to subsidise forestry schemes that are often environmentally destructive and used for further tax avoidance schemes, such as helping high worth individuals avoid inheritance tax.

According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Scottish Forestry paid a grant to the Guernsey Financial Services Commission, an organisation responsible for financial regulation in the offshore tax haven of Guernsey.

Please could Scottish Forestry provide the contract for the woodland creation scheme associated with this grant, the screening opinion for this scheme, the actual name of the scheme as recorded on the Woodland Carbon Code Registry (please also provide a direct link to the actual project on the WCC registry), and a map showing all tree species for this scheme. Also please provide a map showing the location of this scheme.

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.

The Forestry Grant Scheme contract reference 21FGS56745 refers to a Woodland Improvement Grant – Restructuring Regeneration contract with Guernsey Financial Services Commission called ‘Clintlaw Wood Restructuring 1’ for the restocking of areas of trees felled under licence. The Restructuring Regeneration option aims to improve the biodiversity, resilience and species diversity of woodlands in the long term. This will be achieved through restructuring their age and species composition at the point of re-planting following felling. Scottish Forestry pays £550 per hectare for the applicant to prepare the ground after felling and then replant the area with diverse tree species meeting minimum required standards. The above contract is for 24.6Ha of restocking in total and amounts to £13,530 in total. This is management of existing woodland and not woodland creation so does not qualify for Woodland Carbon Code.

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