Scottish Renewables letter to the Secretary of State for Energy Security & Net Zero and Secretary of State for Business & Trade: EIR release

Information requested

On 4th October 2024, an industry letter on REMA was sent to the Secretary of State for Energy Security & Net Zero and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade. It can be found here:

https://www.scottishrenewables.com/publications/1724-industry-letter-on-rema-to-the-secretary-of state-for-energy-security-net-zero-and-secretary-of-state-for-business-trade

Was the Scottish Government invited to co-sign this letter? If so, please provide all relevant correspondence associated with the invitation.

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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. This is because the Scottish Government was not invited to co-sign this letter.

Therefore, with respect to your request above, this is a formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs confirming that the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. It is important to note that although we do not hold the information and have applied Regulation 10(4)(a) – information not held, it is a requirement that we have to apply the public interest test.

Wider guidance on the Environmental Information regime can be found in the Key Concepts section under ‘Information Not Held’ and ‘The Public Interest Test’ in the attached Scottish Information Commissioner Briefings and Guidance document.Further guidance on the public interest test can also be found on page 8 of the Scottish Information Commissioner guidance.

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.