Sewage spills in Scottish waters documentation: EIR release

Information requested

All correspondence sent and received (including internal), minutes/notes from meetings, briefings, analysis, held by the Scottish Government, about sewage spills in Scottish waters, 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 enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested. Exceptions under regulation 12(4)(e) (internal communications) and regulation 12(4)(d) (material in the course of completion, unfinished documents, and incomplete data) of the EIRs apply to some documents that may fall within scope of this request.

An exception under regulation 12(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to most of the documents that would fall within the scope of your request, as the exception would apply to all communications internal to the Scottish Government.

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 for some of these documents. We recognise that there is some public interest in the release of documents relating to this subject. However, for the documents that have been withheld this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the protection of Government's internal decision making and deliberation processes.

An exception under regulation 12(4)(d) (material in the course of completion, unfinished documents, and incomplete data) of the EIRs applies to several documents that may fall within the scope of your request.

This exception is also 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 for some of these documents. We once again recognise that there is some public interest in the release of documents relating to this subject. However, for the documents that have been withheld this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that information disclosed is accurate and not misleading, and ensuring the maintenance of a safe space for discussion.

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 202500498568 - Information released - Annex

File type

PDF

File size

965.9 kB