Correspondence between Scottish Government and Crown Estate Scotland regarding Scotwind: EIR release

Information requested

Could you supply all correspondence and minutes/notes from meetings, between the Scottish Government and Crown Estate Scotland, from the last month, specifically about ScotWind.

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 exception 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 exception is subject to a ‘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 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 enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(d) applies to some information requested because the information is material which is in the course of completion.
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 to support the openness and transparency of government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in applying these exceptions.

The information redacted under regulation 10(4)(d) relates to answers to Parliamentary Questions which have since been answered – links to the answers are below:

Written question and answer: S6W-39996 | Scottish Parliament Website

Written question and answer: S6W-39997 | Scottish Parliament Website

An exception under regulation 10(5)(e) applies to some information requested because the release of the information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the confidentiality of commercial or industrial information. Disclosing this information would likely harm the commercial business of individuals and companies, and could cause economic and reputational damage.

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 to promote transparency and accountability in any dealings between the public and private sector. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in protecting the commercial interests of, and preventing harm to, individuals or companies.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs have been applied to some of the information requested. This is because some of the information requested 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.

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.

FOI 2025004861118 - Information Released - Annex

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