Vahanomy documentation and funding: EIR release

Information requested

How much money has the Scottish Government given to Vahanomy in the last five years, with a breakdown per year and what the money was for?

Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings and analysis, to/from or about Vahanomy, from the last three months?

Response

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 there have been no meetings, correspondence to or from Vahanomy within the last three months. There are no documents either. As no information is held none can be supplied.

Similarly, the Scottish Government has given no money to Vahanomy in the last five years and as such no breakdown of funding is available.

However in the 2022/23 financial year Vahanomy received support from the ZEMAN (Zero Emission Mobility Academic Network) project funding, which was supported by the Scottish Government. However they did not receive any funds as part of this support but received support to bid for funding from Scottish Enterprise. An application to the Scottish Enterprise Innovation Challenge: Zero Emission Heavy Duty Vehicles fund was submitted on 21/10/22. We do not have information on the outcome of this application.

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 Vahanomy, we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

​​​​​​​However, you may wish to contact Scottish Enterprise using the following details Freedom of Information | Scottish Enterprise who may be able to help you.

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.