Scottish Forestry - East Netershield Woodland Creation Scheme correspondence: EIR Review

Information requested

Original request 202500495143

We acknowledge receipt of your email and attached letter issued earlier today.

We find ourselves yet again having to issuing further correspondence correcting serious misrepresentation of the facts from our Government representative. This time recording that our correspondence can in no way we referred to as "general", the points and issues that we have raised and recorded throughout this process have been detailed and supported by evidence , previously c onfirmed by Scottish Forestry (SF) initial representatives as all "considered and relevant". You have clearly not read the detail of the correspondence within the Case History, in that if you had, you will know that the ongoing communication is a direct result of your Government organisations continuing to ignore the recorded detailed evidence, and responding with general communication omitting evidence based answers, in some cases completely ignoring the issues recorded and referring to unrelated points. The detail of the case has been recorded and referred to by the community and it is our Government who has attempted to communicate with general responses which on many occasions have had no substance or credibility.

Your latest letter only goes to provide further evidence that rather than answering the issues raised, our Government has taken the decision to attempt to silence the Public evidence, and try to bury the outstanding issues and not provide answers. It is very clear that your 3 letters over the past month is a direct attempt to close communication prior to having to answer the outstanding issue, yet again attempting to encourage and now force the communication into an internal SF complaints process. As communicated on numerous occasion, we will obtain all the outstanding evidence before formulating a detailed and evidence based complaint to both SF and directly to the SG Complaints Team. It is staggering how much communication SF have issued encouraging a complaint to be issued, at the same time ignoring and not answering the issues recorded in the public communication. This community knew why SF wished us to issue a complaint at a very early stage of the process. If the facts and evidence are going to be ignored in Public Regulated Due Process, why would a Complaint Investigation carried out by the same organisation change this organisation Culture.

We record yet again that Scottish Forestry have not answered all outstanding questions, as they assured they would in previous correspondence. If you read the correspondence you will see all the answers and evidence that are outstanding. To continue to ensure the evidence is at the forefront of the truth in this case, we will now issue FOIR requests to all Government Departments and all those involved in this case for us to obtain all the outstanding information that will form part of the formal complaint to our Government.

Your comments again seriously misrepresents the truth and disrespects the Public. We consider this to be a serious Public Interest issue, that must be dealt with.

As it is yourself that has issued the last 3 letters to us, making the statements that you have, please accept the following as a formal Public Interest Freedom of information Request to yourself.

1. Regarding this Case , please issue a schedule of ALL correspondence , presentations and transcripts of meetings, which you refer to in your letter dated in 22nd October 2025 when stating "Having reviewed the points your raised". You have made important Public Interest Statements and it is critical that there is full transparency on what information is the basis of your decisions, which affect the Public including outstanding Public safety and wellbeing issues.

2. Regarding this Case, please provide copies of all correspondence, and transcripts of any verbal communication you have personally had with any of the following representatives; You will note this is a similar list of those involved in this case, which was part of our communication at the end of 2024, when SF referred to carrying out an internal investigation. As you are aware, or should be aware, the attached detailed communication was ignored and never responded to by SF.

• First Minister, John Swinney?
• Cabinet Secretary, Mairi Gougeon?
• MSP, Mairi McAllan?
• MSP, Brian Whittle?
• Minister of Agriculture, Jim Fairlie?
• Director, Agriculture & Rural Economy, W George Burges?
• RPID Representatives?
• Scottish Forestry Representatives, Tom Hobbs, Simon Franks, Keith Wishart and
• Brendan Callaghan?
• Any other Scottish Forestry Representatives, including senior management.
• NFUS Representatives?
• Neighbours (Signatories of the Letter to the Cabinet Secretary)?
• South Lanarkshire Council Representatives from Road and Planning Services?
• Community Council Representatives?
• Tilhill Representatives?

Response

I have now completed my review of our response to your request 202500495143 under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs).

Your review request

On further review of your correspondence dated 22 December 2024, and the statement on the "Right for Review", we clarify that we request you accept this and the email below as our formal request for a review of the previous decision of withholding Public Interest Documents, for the following detailed reasons;

1. The informal request for information, noted in your attached letter, was a request directly to the new representative from Scottish Forestry who was writing to me for the first time making statements regarding this case. This communication was a direct response on what we recorded as a misrepresentation of the facts and evidence included within the documented Case History and challenging the content of Scottish Forestry's Letter, and the general statements being made throughout it. We note that the author of that communication never responded to questions and it was yourself who responded referring to a FOIR, refusing to provide the critical evidence from noted from ScotGov.

2. The Formal FOIR in the email below is for ALL communication to and from ScotGov organisations, and representatives to ensure that there is full Public Transparency on this Public Regulated Due Process. This case is a serious Public Interest Case, which we will continue to provide evidence on.

3. Due to all that has been stated and communicated previously, by representatives of ScotGov, recorded with the Case History, it is critical for Public Due Process that ALL relevant communication is made Public to determine the facts and truth of compliance and Government Communication, and the actions and decisions, which in a number of critical areas have ignored Local Government, ScotGov (RPID) non support of the proposal, Community Councils, Community Representatives representations and Issues in this case.

4. As there are a number of significant compliance issues that have received either no evidence based answers, bean misrepresented and/or have been ignored completely in all response, it is critical that there is full transparency to the Public on what communication and decisions were being made within ScotGov on these critical and in some cases serious Public Safety Issues. For the record there is a serious Public and Road Safet issue that has been recorded on a number of occasions now and has been continued to be ignored in all responses. This is of serious Public Interest and it is critical that there is full transparency on why. 5. As significant Public Funds are being Granted to Private Organisations through the referred scheme, it is critical and of significant Public interest that there is full transparency from ScotGov that the Public Due Process is being robustly governed by our Elected Members and Civil Servants and the relevant Rural Communities are at the heart of all decisions being made on the change of land use and environment. This Public Interest issue can not and must not be allowed to be questioned or dismissed. Based on the recorded facts in this case it is considered as a significant Public Interest based on the scale of Public Finance being made available for this ScotGov Grant Scheme, throughout Scotland. The evidence of the scale of this is represented on the ScotGov Portal.

6. As this Application was Granted during the ScotGov Finance Emergency, it is of critical Public and Legal interest in the full transparency on who and at what level of Government authorized the approval of a Public Grant.

7. In a ever increasing, and critical period for Food Security, it is of Public Interest who is authorizing the decisions to remove productive farmland from Scotland assests and change its use in no longer being able to produce food for the country. This is a serious Public Interest issue when considering the productive farmland that is being removed from producing food, throughout Scotland, putting at risk the sustainability of farming, food security and price, and our Historic Rural Communities.

8. Despite it being agreed with the CabSec that this Community would be engaged with, and our MSP recording in writing that meetings were agreed to take place between ScotGov and the Community, that fact is that no meeting was held with the Community to discuss their issues and serious concerns from when in was agreed with the CabSec in September 2023 until the Application was approved late 2024. It is of serious Public Interest throughout Scotland why no meetings are being held between ScotGov and representatives of the Communities, Particularly after the Community provides evidence to the CabSec of a complete breakdown of public confidence in the Due Process and the Civil Servants Governing it. It must be transparent that despite agreements at CabSec level who and when were decisions being made NOT to engage with the representatives of the Community and misrepresent the facts of what was, and what was not done with regards to Public Engagement and Consultation.

9. As there are a number of live non compliances with what the Public beleave to be the approved scheme, with no evidence of action being taken by the Regulator and ScotGov, now refusing to respond on these issues, despite previously saying they would, transparency on what internal communication there has been on this issues must be made Public.

10. Finally, as this community has now received a number of responses from ScotGov, including CabSec office, either providing general responses and/or misrepresentation of the facts recorded within the evidence based case study, the internal communication providing the background to these very concerning communications is of significant Public Interest. Who and how was the CabSec being informed of the facts and evidence.

As it is has been clear for many months, if not years that there has been significant Public Interest in this long running and complex case, we ask that there is no further barrier put in place by any representative of ScotGov and ALL Documents, Correspondence and Transcripts are released as a matter of urgency under this FOIR.

Response to your review request

I have reviewed our original response and concluded that the original decision should be modified.

The reason for the modification is that whilst the majority of the relevant information was released to you, 3 documents are being released to you as part of this review.

Document 1: Response-202500490058-MU_Redacted - this letter which had previously been issued to you outwith your EIR request 202500495143 but also falls within the scope of your request is being released to you.

Document 2: Final Draft - NB Response-MU_Redacted - a draft letter within the hyperlink on document 27 page 1 is also being released to you. You will have received the earlier draft dated 4 August 2025 and the final response dated 8 August 2025, but I am sending this further draft dated 7 August 2025 for completeness. There are 3 embedded documents in this draft letter and these have been released to you in the EIR response under review. Document 1 on page 4 can be found on page 71 and 72 of the document called 1) Correspondence (ORs) and email exchanges (internal comms and external) - 13 Emails outside the case folders. Document 2 on page 5 is called 23) SF 202400431004 - 28 November 2024_Redacted. Document 3 on page 9 is called 25) East Nethershields Woodland Creation Operational Plan.

Regulations 11(2) of the EIRs (personal data relating to a third party) and 11(1) of the EIRs (personal data of the applicant) applies to some of the information in the attached documents and this information has been redacted.

All information is considered carefully and minimal redactions occur, in this instance redactions of staff names, signatures and your name have occurred. These documents are being released in the public domain and in accordance with EIR guidance these redactions are not subject to the public interest test.

Document 3: EIR-202500495143 - Schedule of documents released - I am also issuing a schedule of documents for the documents you have received through EIR request 202500495143. The attachments to the emails will be called 3.1, 4.1 etc. in the 72 page batch called 1) Correspondence (ORs) and email exchanges (internal comms and external) - 13 Emails outside the case folders. All other attachments are called 7A, 7B etc. which link to the original email numbered 7 for instance.

However, notwithstanding the above documents, I can confirm that we hold no further information regarding your request.

With reference to the released email dated 6 August 2025 07:00:15, On another note – as we often refer to Unacceptable Actions Policy – would probably be worth finding an hour for the whole team to get together to discuss where we are with Unacceptable Actions. I can confirm no meeting occurred and therefore there is no information in regard to this point.

No meetings occurred between the Corporate Support and Correspondence Officer and any other persons related to this case or to the 22 October 2025 letter therefore there would exist no transcripts of meetings that did not take place. There was no compilation of any form of presentation related to this case or to the letter in question.

An initial search for information for EIR 202500495143 was carried out by the Corporate Support and Correspondence Officer, as your request was directed to this person. This information was analysed, redacted where appropriate and released by the Corporate Business Manager. A further search for information was carried out for this review by the Corporate Support and Correspondence Officer, and no further documents were found besides the 2 which are being released as part of this review along with the Schedule of documents.

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 202600505213 - Information released - Documents

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