Energy Consents Unit meetings regarding electricity and energy infrastructure: EIR release

Information requested

1. In 2025-26, on how many occasions have officials representing the energy consents unit met with SSEN, Scottish Power, or any other company involved in the transmission or distribution of electricity in Scotland (please specify)?

2. In 2025-26, on how many occasions have officials representing the energy consents unit met with protest groups opposed to energy infrastructure in Scotland?

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.

Please note that we have interpreted your request as seeking information from 29 January 2026 to 5 March 2026 (date of this request). This is because information about meetings between the Energy Consents Unit and SSEN or Scottish Power in the period 1 January 2025 to 28 January 2026 was provided in a previous response to an Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) request.

The previous response was issued on 26 February 2026 under reference 202600503902 and is publicly available on our webpages: Energy Consents Unit (ECU) officials meeting with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) and Scottish Power: EIR release - gov.scot

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.

An exception 6(1)(b) of the EIRs (information already available) 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, as the information is already publicly available.

In addition to the published figures provided in the previous response and therefore, for the period 29 January 2026 to 5 March 2026, details are as follows:

Point 1 – there have been 27 occasions where Energy Consents Unit (ECU) officials have met with SSEN and Scottish Power. ECU officials meet with applicants such as SSEN and Scottish Power as necessary in the process of administering applications for energy consents.

Point 2 – there have been 0 occasions where ECU officials have met with protest groups opposed to pylons. ECU officials do not routinely meet with campaigners to discuss applications which may ultimately be submitted to and determined by the Scottish Ministers.

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.