Financial Support Provided to Offshore Solutions Group: EIR release

Information requested

"All information held by the Scottish Government (including its directorates, agencies, nondepartmental public bodies, and enterprise agencies) concerning any financial assistance provided to Offshore Solutions Group (“OSG”). This should include, but not be limited to:

• Any grants, loans, awards, subsidies, or other forms of financial support;
• The amount, date, purpose, and source programme or scheme for any such support;
• Any conditions attached to such funding.”

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.

Response to your request

The answer to your question is:

Scottish Enterprise took a decision in 2024 to offer grant funding for Phase 2 of Offshore Solutions Group’s Temporary Storage – Floating Offshore Wind (TS-FLOW) project, to undertake site investigations and design work, following analysis of the business plan for the project. Scottish Enterprise operates independently of the Scottish Government and is responsible for funding decisions within its delegated authority. This includes providing early-stage support to strategically significant and innovative businesses to help them assess the feasibility and deliverability of their proposals.

In May 2025, the Scottish Government allocated up to £1.83 million funding, as part of our strategic investment in supply chain and ports infrastructure for offshore wind, for Scottish Enterprise to support its grant offer to the Offshore Solutions Group. This funding follows due diligence by Scottish Enterprise and an assessment of the project’s strategic alignment with the Scottish Government’s investment objectives.

Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold some of the information you have requested regarding the funding from Scottish Enterprise to the Offshore Solutions Group, and therefore exceptions under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs apply.

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 some of the information you have requested because Scottish Enterprise is responsible for the administration of funding and any conditions of such. You may however wish to contact Scottish Enterprise to request this information directly from them.

Scottish Enterprise can be contacted by telephone on 0300 013 3385 or through their online contact form: Contact us | Scottish Enterprise.

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.