Forestry Grant Scheme Application statistics: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for the following information:

1. Over the last five years how many applications for Forestry Grants have been received? (If possible, can you break this up by year).
2. Over the last five years what is the total number of grants that have been paid out? (If possible, can you break this up by year).
3. If possible, can you outline how many public bodies or companies, if any, have received grants over 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. Over the last five years how many applications for Forestry Grants have been received? (If possible, can you break this up by year).

Forestry Grant Scheme Application Submission Year (Financial Year)	Count
2020/2021	687
2021/2022	598
2022/2023	566
2023/2024	575
2024/2025	518
Total:	2,944

2. Over the last five years what is the total number of grants that have been paid out? (If possible, can you break this up by year).

Claim Date Paid Year (Financial Year)	Count of Case Reference
2020/21	843
2021/22	628
2022/23	479
2023/24	433
2024/25	498
Total:	2,881

Where projects have multiple claim years (e.g. multi-year capital payment projects, Woodland Creation annual maintenance and Sustainable Management of Forests projects), each project has only been counted once, in the first year they received payment.

3. If possible, can you outline how many public bodies or companies, if any, have received grants over the last five years?

Scottish Forestry does not collect or collate this type of information, for applications to the Forestry Grant Scheme. As a result, Scottish Forestry does not hold information or report on the number of public bodies, or companies that have received funding through the Forestry Grant Scheme.

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.