Public inquiries held under the 1989 Electricity Act: EIR release

Information requested

In each year since 2020-21, including the current year to date, how many public inquiries have been held under the 1989 Electricity Act.

In relation to Q1 what is the cost associated with these inquiries? Please provide data for each year since 2020-21, including the current year to date. Please include all costs including staffing, accommodation, admin etc.

Response

The attached table gives the number of Electricity Act inquiries completed in the financial years requested and details the total venue and advert costs associated with those cases. It also details the number of days reporters spent on the cases that were completed in those years.

Financial Year	Number of Cases	Venue and Advert Costs	Reporter Days
2020 - 2021	3	£4,953	369
2021 - 2022	8	£31,088	1466
2022 - 2023	5	£3,984	761
2023 - 2024	10	£21,115	1325
2024 - 2025	8	£13,406	1072
2025 - 2026	1	£2,678	75

Some of the information requested relating to the number of days spent by administration staff on individual cases is not recorded, therefore we cannot provide the costs. As shown above although we do record the number of days reporters spend on each case we do not historically record their salary details at the time of completion, therefore we cannot provide those costs either.

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 it is not captured in such a way to provide an accurate and detailed response.

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 staff costs associated directly with individual inquiries, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold or capture.

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