Scoping report for the Stromar Offshore Wind Farm project: EIR release

Information requested

1. Standard Procedure

• Please provide documentation or internal guidance describing the standard process by which Marine Scotland seeks and receives consultation input from NatureScot for the purposes of preparing a formal Scoping Opinion (under the EIA (Scotland) Regulations).
• In particular, does this process require NatureScot to respond directly to Marine Scotland, or are submissions via local authorities (e.g., Aberdeenshire Council) a recognised/accepted practice?

2. NatureScot Involvement – Stromar Scoping (Jan–Apr 2024)

• Was NatureScot formally invited by Marine Scotland to respond to the Stromar Scoping Report submitted in January 2024?
• If so, please provide the date and method of that invitation (e.g., email, portal notification).
• If not, please confirm the reason for this or indicate whether a response was expected via a different channel.

3. 6 March 2024 NatureScot Memo

• If the 6 March 2024 memo (CEA173838/CEA173851), addressed to Aberdeenshire Council and containing ecological risk concerns, was not received directly by Marine Scotland, does Marine Scotland consider it normal or procedurally compliant for such responses to be handled via the Council?
• Was this channel (through the Council) part of the expected consultation pathway for the Stromar Scoping process?

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.

1. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide all of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies. Under the terms of this exception, the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

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 with regard to the consultation for the scoping opinion, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

1.1 NatureScot was consulted on the scoping report for the Stromar Offshore Wind Farm project.

1. I enclose some of the information requested. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this  instance we are unable to provide all of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party 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.

1. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide all of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies. Under the terms of this exception, the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

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 the NatureScot memo dated 6 March 2024, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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.

EIR 202500474007 - Information released - Annex

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