Climate Change Plan meeting materials: EIR release

Information requested

All minutes/notes from meetings and briefings written by civil servants and seen by Gillian Martin and/or her office, about the climate change plan, from the last month.

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.

I have included copies of the information you have requested in the attached document in Annex B.

On reviewing materials within scope of your request some exceptions have been applied in line with the EIRs. You can find information on the exceptions that have been applied to information in Annex A.

Annex A

The following exceptions have been applied:

Regulation 11 - Personal Data

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance an exception under Regulation 11, personal data, has been applied to some of the information requested.

Information has been redacted under Regulation 11 (Personal Data), as it contains personal information and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and in Section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’.

Regulation 10(4)(e) - Internal communication

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance an exception under Regulation 10(4)(e), internal communication, has been applied to some of the information requested.

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. We recognise that there is some public interest in releasing the information as part of an open, transparent and accountable government. However, this is outweighed by the greater public interest in allowing Scottish Government officials and ministers a private space to share free and frank views for the purpose of deliberation of any given policy.

Regulation 10(4)(e) – Material in the course of completion, unfinished documents or incomplete data

An exception under regulation 10(4)(d) of the EIRs (unfinished or incomplete information) applies to some of the information you have requested because it is an unfinished document. 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that unfinished or incomplete information is not disclosed when it might misinform the public or give a misleading impression of the Government’s view or position on the matter to which the information relates

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 202500485065 - Information released - Annex B

File type

PDF

File size

415.5 kB