Appointment of Chief Planning Officers communications: FOI Review

Information requested

Original request 202500461952

1. A copy of all written or electronic communications between the Scottish Government and/or the Local Government and Housing Directorate and Aberdeenshire Council regarding the Council’s failure to comply with the legislative requirement to appoint a chief planning officer;

2. A copy of all directions and/or communications issued by the Scottish Government and/or the Local Government and Housing Directorate to Scottish Local Authorities regarding the appointment of chief planning officers and the scope of the responsibility of chief planning officers.

Response

I have now completed my review of our failure to respond to your request under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) for:

1. A copy of all written or electronic communications between the Scottish Government and/or the Local Government and Housing Directorate and Aberdeenshire Council regarding the Council’s failure to comply with the legislative requirement to appoint a chief planning officer;

2. A copy of all directions and/or communications issued by the Scottish Government and/or the Local Government and Housing Directorate to Scottish Local Authorities regarding the appointment of chief planning officers and the scope of the responsibility of chief planning officers.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to your request. The reason for the delay in our response is that we did not receive your letter at the time it was originally sent. We have engaged with multiple teams across the office and it is unfortunate your original letter and request for information was not received until you provided a copy of it when pursuing a response.

In line with Freedom of Information (Scotland) legislation we are now required to treat your request for information as a review as we failed to respond to your initial request within the statutory time frame.

In accordance with regulation 16(3)(b) of the EIRs, I have also reached a decision on your request.

I can now provide our response to your original request.

Regarding the first part of your request, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Whilst our aim is to provide information wherever possible, in this instance we are unable to do so because despite undertaking the relevant searches we do not hold the information. Therefore we are refusing this part of your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

You will wish to note, however, that in Aberdeenshire Council’s National Planning Improvement Framework (NPIF) Performance Assessment they reported that they do have a Chief Planning Officer, who is the Head of the Planning and Economy Service.

Turning to the second part of your request, I enclose a copy of some of the information you have requested:

• Document 1 - an email from the Chief Planner to each local authority’s head of planning, providing statutory guidance on the appointment of Chief Planning officers.
• Document 2 - the statutory guidance document included in the email. This guidance is also publicly available on the gov.scot website at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/chief-planning-officers-guidance/.

However, we are unable to provide you with some of the information contained in document 1 because an exception under regulation 11(2) (personal information) of the EIRs applies. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

You will also wish to note that some information in document 1 has been withheld as it is not within the scope of your request.

You may also find it helpful to know that in November 2024, we hosted a Chief Planning Officers event which saw the Scottish Government meet with local authorities. Whilst this does not fall within the scope of your request, as part of the Scottish Government’s duty to advise and assist, we are providing you with this information out with the EIRs. I enclose a copy of the Chief Planning Officers Event agenda at document 3.

ANNEX

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information

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 Government does not have the information you have requested because the Scottish Government has not had any communication with Aberdeenshire Council regarding the appointment of a Chief Planning Officer before the statutory requirement came into force on 1st April 2024.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about correspondence between the Scottish Government and Aberdeenshire Council regarding the appointment of a Chief Planning officer, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

An exception applies

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to document 1 because some of the information contained is personal data 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.

You will also wish to note that the names of the heads of planning that the email was sent to are not available. This is because the recipients of this email were Blind Carbon Copied (BCC) when the email was issued.

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 202500461954 - Information released - Documents 1 - 3

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