Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity correspondence relating to ‘greening’ and Scotland’s islands: EIR release

Information requested

1. Any correspondence sent to Jim Fairlie relating to ‘greening’ since January 2025.

2. Any correspondence sent from Jim Fairlie relating to ‘greening’ since January 2025.

3. Any correspondence sent to Jim Fairlie relating specifically to greening and Scotland’s islands since January 2025.

4. Any correspondence sent from Jim Fairlie, relating specifically to greening and Scotland’s islands, since January 2025.

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.

Assumptions have been applied, due to the quantity of correspondence initially identified, that the question is related to Enhanced Greening changes that are being implemented during 2026 and 2027 and general Greening scheme correspondence have not been included unless relevant. Personal data has been redacted in accordance to regulation 11(2) of the EIRs and we have also applied regulation 10(4)e of the EIRs for internal communications. Communications that were not relevant to the ask have been removed as out of scope and all documentation have been clearly marked where exemptions have been applied.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above.

If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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.