Communications from Scottish Enterprise & Scottish Ministers re Moray Firth Flow Park: EIR release

Information requested

“Information regarding the proposed Moray Firth Flow Park. Specifically:

1. Please provide details of any involvement, support, or engagement by Scottish Enterprise with the Moray Firth Flow Park project, including correspondence, meeting notes, funding discussions, or strategic assessments, from January 2022 to the present.

2. Please confirm whether any Scottish Government ministers have been involved in discussions about the Moray Firth Flow Park or have been made aware of the project. If so, please provide the dates, nature of involvement, and any relevant documentation or briefings.”

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.

Where exceptions apply this 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.

Response to your request:

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested – please refer to items 1-7 released to you. Please note that, while our aim is to provide information where possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under Regulation 10(4)(e) (Internal communications) and 10(5)(e) (Confidentiality of commercial or industrial information, provided for by law to protect legitimate economic interest) apply. The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

Furthermore, exception under regulation 11(2) (personal information) of the EIRs apply to some of the information you have requested. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) apply to some of the information requested because it is personal data 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.

We have also provided within item 4, four short extracts from other documents that are otherwise not in scope of your request.

Some of the Information you have requested is available online:

I have provided a link to the Marine.gov.scot website here: European Protected Species & Basking Shark Licence - Geophysical Survey - Moray FLOW-Park, Moray Firth - 00011393/00011394 | marine.gov.scot, which provides information on the Scottish marine environment, including resources that are made available by the Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate and partners. This page provides public access to associated application documents for the Moray FLOW-park, Moray Firth.

This includes access to view the following documents, which are within scope of the second part of your request:

• Basking Shark Licence Application – Geophysical Survey
• European Protected Species Licence Application – Geophysical Survey

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

ANNEX

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

Some information has been withheld because I have determined that exceptions apply under regulation 10(4)(e) (Internal Communications), regulation 10(5)(e) (substantial prejudice to confidentiality of commercial or industrial information) of EIR.

Exception under regulation 10(4)(e) (Internal Communications) of the EIR’s apply to some of the information you have requested because it records internal communications.

Exception under regulation 10(5)(e) of the EIRs (substantial prejudice to confidentiality of commercial information) apply to some of the information you have requested. This is because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided for by law to protect a legitimate economic interest. In this case, the information requested is considered to be commercially sensitive as it includes financial details of commercially confidential nature.

Exceptions are 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 for interest in wider government transparency and interest in engagement between Government and commercial companies. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that the economic interests of companies are not impacted, particularly where information is commercial or economic in nature and which are not in the public domain or have since changed.

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 202500487734 - Information Released - Documents 1 to 7

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