Planning timescales for energy infrastructure consenting: EIR release

Information requested

“How long has it taken the Scottish Government to respond to statutory consultations to do with electricity infrastructure consenting? Please provide timescales for all projects undertaken in the past 3 years and an average.”

With a later clarification of:

“The purpose of the FOI is to get a better idea of planning timescales for energy infrastructure - we would be grateful to know the targets and averages which the Scottish Government has for all renewable/BESS applications submitted to the Energy Consents Unit.”

Therefore, to ensure that we can adequately respond to your request, we have interpreted the ask as follows:

“How long has it taken statutory consultees to respond to Scottish Government requests, relating to electricity infrastructure consenting applications? Please provide timescales for all projects undertaken in the past 3 years and an average.”

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.

Response to your request

As part of the application process, the Scottish Government consults a range of statutory bodies, most of which operate independently from the Scottish Government. These consultees are invited to provide their responses within a specified timeframe. Once the consultation period concludes and all relevant factors have been considered, Scottish Ministers make a final determination on the application. Each proposal is  assessed individually, on a case-by-case basis.

For section 36 applications, the planning authority must serve notification of any objection to the application within four months, or such longer period as may be agreed in writing by the planning authority, the Scottish Ministers and the applicant. For section 37 applications, the relevant Planning Authority has two months from the date of the application within which to respond to the application in line with regulation 8(1) of the Consent Regulations. If the project involves an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), statutory consultees have 30 days from the last date the notices are published to respond. If it’s not an EIA development, they have 28 days (or longer if stated in public notices).

As outlined in the clarification letter previously provided, the following guidance may assist you in understanding our application processes:

https://www.gov.scot/policies/energy-infrastructure/energy-consents/

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested in relation to timescales for all projects undertaken in the past 3 years and an average as we do not record this information.

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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception, as the information is not available.

While we do not record average processing times for renewable energy applications, the Energy Consents Portal (https://www.energyconsents.scot/) ensures full transparency by publishing all relevant documents and key dates associated with each application.

From the main page of the website, click on the search tab, followed by 'Advanced Search'. There is then the option to search by case type and status, before selecting the 'go' button which returns the search results.
These can then be exported to various file formats to allow for additional analysis.

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.