Nature Restoration Fund: EIR release

Information requested

1. A breakdown in the split of the Nature Restoration Fund between local authorities and NatureScot over the last five years.
2. How much funding councils will receive from the Nature Restoration Fund in 2025-26?
3. Whether the £5 million redirected from the fund last year will be returned this year?

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.

Question 1

NRF – Allocations 2021-22 to 2025-26

	2021/22		2022/23		2023/24		2024/25		2025/26
	Capital (£m)	Resour ce (£m)	Capital (£m)	Resour ce (£m)	Capital (£m)	Resource (£m)	Capital (£m)	Resource (£m)	Capital (£m)	Resource (£m)
Nature Scot	5		4.5	2.75	6	2.75	6	2.75	6	2.75
EP (LAs & NPs)	5		6.5		10.5				7.5	2.5

Question 2

In 2025-26 the Scottish Government will allocate £5 million (£2.5 million capital and £2.5 million revenue funding) to Scottish Local Authorities as part of the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF). This is known as the Edinburgh Process strand of the NRF to be spent in 2025-26 to support new, or to enhance existing, approaches to restoring biodiversity.

Question 3
In addition to the 2025-26 funding allocation, there will be a replacement of £5 million NRF funding that was redirected to the local government pay deal in 2024-25. A full breakdown of the 2025-26 council allocation is listed below:

LOCAL AUTHORITY	REVENUE	CAPITAL
Aberdeen City	0.070	0.196
Aberdeenshire	0.081	0.332
Angus	0.086	0.224
Argyll & Bute	0.084	0.350
City of Edinburgh	0.082	0.208
Clackmannanshire	0.054	0.150
Dumfries & Galloway	0.152	0.365
Dundee City	0.059	0.125
East Ayrshire	0.053	0.148
East Dunbartonshire	0.066	0.197
East Lothian	0.068	0.163
East Renfrewshire	0.045	0.090
Falkirk	0.075	0.258
Fife	0.168	0.546
Glasgow City	0.117	0.206
Highland	0.102	0.494
Inverclyde	0.066	0.221
Midlothian	0.053	0.150
Moray	0.077	0.181
Na h-Eileanan Siar	0.058	0.185
North Ayrshire	0.073	0.260
North Lanarkshire	0.120	0.401
Orkney Islands	0.049	0.079
Perth & Kinross	0.094	0.268
Renfrewshire	0.058	0.149
Scottish Borders	0.063	0.240
Shetland Islands	0.046	0.119
South Ayrshire	0.048	0.138
South Lanarkshire	0.142	0.393
Stirling	0.056	0.172
West Dunbartonshire	0.058	0.185
West Lothian	0.078	0.308
Total	2.500	7.500

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.