Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council Barriers to Deployment Group agendas and minutes: EIR release

Information requested

For the period 1st January 2022 - date, please provide all agendas and minutes for meetings of the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) Barriers to Deployment Group.

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.

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) Barriers to Deployment Group is not led by Scottish Government and therefore in some cases does not hold a formal record of the meetings within scope of your request, and as a result, we are unable to provide the specific details you have asked for.

An exception under regulation 10(5)(f) of the EIRs also applies to some of the information you have requested. Regulation 10(5)(f) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs) allows a Scottish public authority to withhold environmental information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, cause substantial prejudice to the interests of a person who provided information voluntarily to the authority.

The exception under Regulation 10(5)(f) is subject to the 'public interest test'. We have carefully considered whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. After weighing all the circumstances, we have concluded that, on balance, the public interest favours upholding the exception. While we acknowledge the public interest in transparency, particularly regarding matters that could affect environmental or public policy decisions, this is outweighed by the public interest in protecting commercially sensitive information. Disclosure of the information could harm legitimate economic interests, weaken the competitive position of the involved parties, and result in financial loss or reputational damage.

Furthermore, an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. Disclosure of this information would breach data protection principles (regulation 11(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.

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 202500451992 - Information released - Documents

File type

PDF

File size

3.3 MB