Minutes of the Scottish Hydrogen Industry Forum (SHIF) meetings: EIR release

Information requested

Copies of the minutes of the Scottish Hydrogen Industry Forum (SHIF) meetings held in 2024, 2025 and 2026.

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.

I enclose a copy some of the information you requested.

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 11(2) of the EIRs applies to that information.

Regulation 11(2) applies to personal data relating to a third party (in this case, names of Scottish Government officials and stakeholders). This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Regulation 10(5)e applies to confidential commercial or industrial information shared at two of the SHIF meetings (Document 6 and Document 7).

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 some public interest in release in interest of government transparency. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in providing a space where companies can share information in confidence and ensuring that their economic interests are not impacted.

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 202600513860 - Information released - Documents

File type

PDF

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386.2 kB