Correspondence with Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) regarding Stromar Offshore Wind Farm: EIR release

Information requested

1. Copies of any invitations, correspondence, or meeting records sent to or received from RSPB regarding the Stromar Offshore Wind Farm during the scoping consultation process.

2. Clarification of whether RSPB was formally consulted on the onshore aspects of the project (e.g. cable route, landfall, or terrestrial SSSI impacts) and not just offshore ornithological concerns.

3. Any records or internal notes indicating how RSPB’s absence or non-submission was interpreted in the context of forming the Scoping Opinion.

4. Any assessment criteria or policy that defines what constitutes “consultation” with RSPB during the scoping stage of an offshore wind project.

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. 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.

2. 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 onshore aspects of the project, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

3. 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 RSPB’s response, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

4. Considerations before submitting an application can be found at the following link Marine licensing: considerations before submitting an application - gov.scot

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 202500474009 - Information released - Annex

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