Empty Home Partnership, short-term lets and national housing emergency documentation: FOI release

Information requested

1. How much money has been handed out to the Empty Home Partnership in the last five years, and how many homes have been found as a result of this? Could you break this down by year and where the money went?

2. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government about short-term lets during the Edinburgh festival, including correspondence sent and received, briefings, minutes/notes from meetings, analysis, from the last three months?

3. Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government about the national housing emergency including correspondence sent and received, briefings, minutes/notes from meetings, analysis, from the last month?

Response

Response to your request (1)

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. Regarding how much money has been handed out to the Empty Home Partnership in the last five years, we have had to go back longer than five years. The period requested includes four single year grant awards and one final multi-year award.

Year	Funding (£)
2018/19	1,269,000
2019/20
2020/21
2021/22	300,970
2022/23	390,000
2023/24	396,500
2024/25	423,000
Total	2,779,470

Some of the information you have requested is available from the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership’s annual reports that can be obtained from the publication section of the website - https://emptyhomespartnership.scot/publications/. This is regarding the numbers of homes brought back into use. Similarly, the annual report summarises the key activity covered by the funding in any given year. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you.

Response to your request (2)

Attached are copies of e-mails identified as falling within the scope of the request. In terms of other material, briefings, minutes/notes of meetings, analysis, the Scottish Government does not hold any material relevant to the scope of the request.

Response to your request (3)

In this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. Fulfilling your request would exceed this amount due to the amount of information that falls within the scope of the request. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit.

Our aim is to provide information whenever possible, and you may wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that associated costs can be brought below £600. For example, by asking for information about a specific policy or by significantly narrowing the request. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner's 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

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.

FOI 202500457119 - Information released - Annex

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