Heat in Buildings (HiB) Bill information: EIR release
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004
Information requested
1. Any handover notes provided to staff on the Heat in Buildings Bill in the aftermath of Patrick Harvie leaving the Scottish Government.
2. Any handover notes provided to Ministers or Cabinet Secretaries on the Heat in Buildings Bill in the aftermath of Patrick Harvie leaving the Scottish Government.
3. Any briefings within the Scottish Government referencing both the Heat in Buildings Bill and the Climate Change Committee’s March 2024 comments on it, from after the report was published and leading up until after the amended plans for the Bill were announced.
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 we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exemptions have been applied under:
- Regulation 10(4)(a) Information not held
- Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal communication
- Regulation 11(2) Personal information
Further detail on the exemptions can be found in the attached annex.
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.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG