Scottish Forestry gender and specific demographic groups queries: FOI release
Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002
Information requested
Under the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) Act 2002, I would like to request the following information held by you:
1. What your organisation understands the word ‘woman’[1] to denote.
2. What your organisation understands the terms: lesbian, bisexual and gay to denote?
3. Actions that you have carried out for women (as defined by the Supreme Court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) in the last 5 years. Please break that down the amount spent by each calendar year, please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format, please include data for 2026.
4. Actions you have carried out for (each and separately) lesbian,[2] gay and bisexual people (each term as defined by the supreme court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) in the last 5 years? (please break that down by year, for the last 5 years and this calendar year) and only if achievable within cost limit, the action taken and the amount spent on each action.
5. Copies of any funding agreements, or contracts, or other documents held by your organisation in the last 5 years with any LGBT organisationor organisation that has LGBT+ issues as its main focus, specifying the purpose of the funding.
6. The total amount of spend in the last 5 years (from 2020 up to the present day) for grants, funding, donations, contracts, or any other financial support, membership fees or subscriptions to LGBT diversity schemes or programmes provided by your authority to organisations that work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, transgender, ace, pan or intersex people or any other related or associated equality issues.
7. A breakdown, where held, of this spend for each year from 2020/2025 to 2025/2026. Ideally, please provide by calendar year. Please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format.
8. A breakdown, where held, of this funding by recipient organisation, including their name, amount provided for each year from 2020/2025 to 2025/6 and only if achievable within cost limit a brief description of what it was for (including, but not limited to: mental health support, equality training and education, awareness raising initiatives, youth projects, sport or health services)
To emphasise: in each case for each of the above please only provide that which is achievable within the cost limit.
Please note: if your organisation does not categorise specifically for ‘LGBT’, then please include any funding to charities and third sector bodies where they have supporting LGBT people as a prime or major objective or where the spend might reasonably fall into this description from the above questions.
Examples of such organisations are, but are not limited to:
- LGBT Youth Scotland
- Equality Network
- Scottish Trans (Scottish Trans Alliance)
- Stonewall Scotland
- Any local LGBT groups and projects
Format
If the requested info is already available (in annual accounts or previous FOI requests) please can you direct me to it? I would like for this information to be sent in electronic format, ideally in a spreadsheet or table to aid clarity, if this is possible.
Response
(1) What your organisation understands the word ‘woman’ to denote.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, after conducting a thorough search of Scottish Forestry records and shared records with Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS), I can confirm that we were unable to find any information regarding part one of your request, which pertains to the denotation of the word ‘woman.’ This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA informing you that Scottish Forestry does not hold the information you requested in point one.
Under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), public authorities are required to disclose recorded information they hold at the time of a request, not to create new information to answer questions.
Please refer to the document attached in Annex A (document 1), which may be helpful and demonstrates Scottish Forestry’s understanding of the word ‘woman’ and the fact that, as an executive agency of the Scottish Government, Scottish Forestry accepts the ruling of the Supreme Court from April 2025, and is legally compliant with the court ruling you refer to in your information request.
(2) What your organisation understands the terms: lesbian, bisexual and gay to denote?
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA confirming that we have searched the records for the information you requested in part two of your request, and we confirm that Scottish Forestry does not hold the information.
(3) Actions that you have carried out for women (as defined by the Supreme Court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) in the last 5 years. Please break that down the amount spent by each calendar year, please provide by fiscal year if you do not have it in calendar format, please include data for 2026.
Please refer to the documents attached as Annex B (documents 2 to 3; documents 17 to 20 – 2022/2023; documents 21 to 31 – year 2023/2024; documents 32-39 – 2024/2025; documents 40 to 47 – year 2025/2026; documents 48 and 49; document 50).
- For the answer to the Points (4) to (8) in your request:
Please refer to the documents attached as Annex C (documents 4 to 16).
You may also be interested in these two web pages with the Equality Mainstreaming Report, which
is being regularly updated, and all the relevant and up-to-date EQIA:
- https://www.forestry.gov.scot/equality-and-diversity and
- https://www.forestry.gov.scot/publications/28
The Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA), carried out by Scottish Forestry for Scotland’s Forestry Strategy 2019 - 2029, is accessible on the Scottish Government’s website:
Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we are not required to provide you with information that is already reasonably accessible to you. However, if you do not have internet access to obtain this information, please contact me again, and I will send you a paper copy where practicable.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, we are unable to provide some of the information you requested because exemption 38(1)(b) (personal information) applies, as does exemption 33(1)(b) (prejudice to commercial interest). You will be able to recognise where this information was redacted in Annex C.
Please refer to Annex A below for the reasons why these exemptions apply.
ANNEX A
REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION
Section 17(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) — (Notice that information is not held)
An exemption under section 17(1) of FOISA applies to some of the requested information. The public authority, in this case Scottish Forestry, is not required to provide information it does not hold at the time of the request.
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA confirming that Scottish Forestry does not have all the information you requested, as this falls outside its authority and remit as a forestry regulator. This is a procedural section that mandates the public authority to issue a notice of refusal, rather than withholding information based on an exemption; therefore, it is not subject to a public interest test.
Section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) — (Information otherwise accessible)
Section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) exempts information from disclosure when the requester can reasonably access it without making a request under FOISA. It differs from most other exemptions because it does not aim to withhold information from the public; instead, it acknowledges that if information is already publicly available, there is no need to provide an alternative access route through FOISA. When this exemption applies, authorities should explain to the requester why they believe the information can be obtained through other means. Typically, this involves informing the requester where they can find the information. The response above explains how you can access the publicly available information you requested.
This is an absolute exemption and, as such, it does not fall under the ‘public interest test’, so we are not obliged to assess whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption.
Under section 25 (1) of FOISA, we are not obliged to provide you with information that is already reasonably accessible to you. However, if you do not have Internet access to obtain this information, please contact me again, and I will send you a paper copy where possible.
Section 38(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) — (Personal Information)
An exemption under Section 38(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you requested, particularly in Annex C (event registration form), because it contains personal data such as names and contact details of individuals, which are exempt from disclosure under section 38(1)(b) (personal information).
Section 38(1)(b) applies when releasing the requested information would breach the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the GDPR. This exemption is absolute and not subject to the 'public interest test', so there is no need to assess whether the public interest in disclosure outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption.
Section 33(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) — (Prejudice to commercial interest)
An exemption under Section 33(1)(b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you requested, particularly in the documents released as Annexes B and, because it contains invoice numbers, bank account numbers or other internal financial sensitive data of third parties, which are exempt from disclosure under section 33(1)(b) of FOISA (the commercial interest). The disclosure of this kind of commercially sensitive information about a contracted suppliers of services would, or would likely to substantially prejudice the commercial interests of the company and Scottish Forestry as the interested party.
This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’, and we have a statutory obligation to apply this test. Therefore, considering all the circumstances of this case, we have assessed whether the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption. We have concluded that, on balance, the public interest supports upholding the exemption. While we recognise there may be some public interest in releasing all the information to ensure full transparency, this interest is outweighed by the need to allow the business in question to operate without the threat of financial loss or the release of sensitive financial data to competitions or third parties, which could harm its profitability, Scottish Forestry and the taxpayer.
[1] On 16th April, 2025, in their ruling: ‘For Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers’, The Supreme Court concluded (at paragraph 264): “the words ‘sex’, ‘woman’ and ‘man… mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man.
[2] On 16th April, 2025, in their ruling: ‘For Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers’, The Supreme Court concluded (at paragraph 206) “a person with same sex orientation as a lesbian must be a female who is sexually oriented towards (or attracted to females, and lesbians as a group are females who share the characteristic of being sexually oriented towards females.”
About FOI
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Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG