ScotWind leasing round correspondence: EIR Review

Information requested

Original request 202400442008

For the period 26th May 2020 to 17th January 2022, please provide a list of all meetings (in person or virtual) involving Ministers or Cabinet Secretaries which discussed the ScotWind leasing round. For each meeting, please provide the date of the meeting, a list of participants, and the minutes of the meeting.

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) for:

"For the period 26th May 2020 to 17th January 2022, please provide a list of all meetings (in person or virtual) involving Ministers or Cabinet Secretaries which discussed the ScotWind leasing round. For each meeting, please provide the date of the meeting, a list of participants, and the minutes of the meeting".

In relation to your review, you have specifically asked for a review of the application of 10(4)(a) (information not held) with respect to “no written record of the ScotWind discussion on 13th February 2022.”

My review has concentrated solely on this.

I have been asked by the Offshore Wind Directorate, who handled the original EIR request, to carry out the review because I was not involved in handling the original request. I have looked at the case afresh to establish whether the original response should be confirmed, with or without modifications as appropriate, or a fresh decision should be substituted.

I have concluded that the original decision should be confirmed. I have reached this decision after reexamining the searches that were carried out in response to your initial request, which I believe to have been both adequate and proportionate to the request. Nevertheless, I have conducted an additional search, which also yielded no results within scope of your initial request.

Whilst undertaking the review of your original request I located some additional information. This is an email that, although outside the scope of the original request, may be helpful to you. This additional information, which is enclosed (Item 1A), is a copy of an email from the Office of the First Minister to Scottish Government officials on 17th January 2022. Although it is not a formal record or minute of the meeting as per your initial request for information, the email makes reference to the meeting on 13th January 2022 and to several points discussed at that meeting.

This release is made as a discretionary step for transparency rather than as a formal modification of the decision.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information contained within it 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.

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 202500450970 - Information released - Item 1A

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