Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy correspondence regarding renewable energy infrastructure: EIR release

Information requested

Any correspondence sent to Gillian Martin about renewable energy infrastructure, in the South of Scotland, within the last two months.

Any correspondence sent from Gillian Martin about renewable energy infrastructure, in the South of Scotland, without the last two months.

Any briefing notes provided to Gillian Martin about renewable energy infrastructure in the South of Scotland within the last two months.

Response

Please note that we have interpreted part two of the request to be ‘within the last two months'.

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.

On reviewing materials within scope of your request, some exceptions have been applied in line with the EIRs. You can find information on the exceptions that have been applied to information in Annex A.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested in Annex B. This relates to the first and second part of your request which asks for ‘any correspondence sent to Gillian Martin about renewable energy infrastructure, in the South of Scotland, within the last two months and any correspondence sent from Gillian Martin about renewable energy infrastructure, in the South of Scotland, without the last two months’. Details on the exceptions that have been applied to the information can be found in Annex A.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies. Our searches found no information relating to part three of your request: ‘Any briefing notes provided to Gillian Martin about renewable energy infrastructure in the South of Scotland within the last two months.’

ANNEX A

The following exceptions have been applied and are not subject to the public interest test:

Regulation 11(2) – Personal Data

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance an exception under Regulation 11, personal data, has been applied to some of the information requested. Information has been redacted under Regulation 11 (Personal Data), as it contains personal information and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and in Section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’.

Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs - Information not held

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide all of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies. Under the terms of this exception, the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. 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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in health and safety incidents, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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 202600502258 - Information released - Annex B

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