Closure of the application window for the Integrated Land Management Plan (ILMP): EIR release

Information requested

I would like to know why Scottish Government have temporarily closed the application window for the Integrated Land Management Plan (ILMP), specialist advice and mentoring support delivered through the Farm Advisory Service.

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) Act2002 (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. 

The Farm Advisory Service delivers support through both One-to-One and One-to-Many provision.

One-to-One support, which includes Specialist Advice, Integrated Land Management Plans (ILMPs) and Mentoring, is delivered under a single contract and is demand-led. Due to extraordinarily high uptake, the budget allocated to this element of the service has been fully committed for the current financial year (2025/26). As a result, new applications for One-to-One support have been temporarily paused. Normal service is expected to resume in April 2026. The One-to-One advice line remains open.

One-to-Many support, including online materials, publications, podcasts, events, FAS TV and FAS Connect, is delivered through separate arrangements and continues to be available.

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.