Requests for a review of The Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundary Order 1999: EIR release

Information requested

I refer to my previous request, your reference being FOI/202500495044.

Please release release all internal and external communications that was produced or reviewed by the Scottish Government which informed the framing of question 559 in the Q&A section of the Scotland's Future published in 2013 (noting that all relevant information will have been produced at least twelve years ago).

Please release all internal and external communications that was produced or reviewed by the Scottish Government in the lead up to the issuing of a letter on the same topic dating to 1 April 2015 (noting that all relevant information will have been produced at least ten years ago).

Please advise if you hold any information evidencing whether there have been any further requests to the UK Government to review The Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999 since 2015.

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.

Request for information relating to the development of Question 559 of the 2013 Scotland’s Future publication and requests to the UK Government requesting a review of The Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999

Questions 1 & 2

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide copies of communications that informed the development of Question 559 (regarding Scotland’s Maritime Boundaries) of the 2013 Scotland’s Future publication noted in your request. This is due to an exception under Regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) which applies to the information you have requested as these contain records of discussions pertaining to the development of Scottish Government policy in addition to legal advice (the latter of which would be subject to legal professional privilege).

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. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, this is outweighed by the strong public interest in maintaining the right to confidentiality of communications which are subject to legal professional privilege and to ensure that Scottish Ministers and/or Scottish Government Officials have a private space to receive and subsequently deliberate the content of said communications for the purposes of policy development or implementation were required.

Question 3

I can confirm that searches conducted in relation to your request have identified that a request for a review of The Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundary Order 1999 was submitted by the then Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment, Richard Lochhead, to the UK Government for consideration in April 2015. I wish to highlight that no further instances of requests for a review of the 1999 Order have been identified after the aforementioned 2015 request noted above.

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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.