Publication - FOI/EIR release

Funding for Planning Aid Scotland: EIR release

Published: 12 December 2023
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: 202200314853
Date received: 8 August 2022
Date responded: 12 September 2022

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Information requested

Information relating to funding provided by the Scottish Government to the charity Planning Aid Scotland.

What monitoring reports, management information or similar Planning Aid Scotland (also known as PAS) are required to provide to indicate how they are fulfilling their Scottish Government grant funding requirements
Copies of all monitoring reports provided by Planning Aid Scotland (or PAS) to the Scottish Government for core grants and other grants made between the period 1 January 2017 until the present date.
Any other information that details that the grant conditions have been met (e.g. evaluations).

As you noted in your request, the Scottish Government provides funding to Planning Aid Scotland, with terms and conditions attached to each grant letter, as well as targets and milestones to reflect the purpose of each grant.

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.

Response

Copies of some of the information you requested, as set out below and in the attachments of your response pack, are attached.

Response to 1 and 2:
PAS provide Annual Delivery Plan updates to Scottish Government reporting progress in achieving Scottish Government Outcomes and meet officials at least twice per year to discuss progress. Delivery Plan Updates from 2018-19 to 2021-22 are found in appendices 1 to 4. Some of the information contained in these updates is exempt from disclosure under Regulation 11(2) – Personal Information.

Regulation 11(2) provides that where the information requested includes personal data about a person other than the applicant and disclosure would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998, the public authority shall not make that personal data available.

I have been unable to locate the Annual Delivery Plan for from 2017-18, therefore I am refusing this element of your request under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. However the information you require for this element of the request can be found in PAS Annual Accounts up to 31 March 2018. 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. For your convenience I have attached a link to those online accounts from 2017-18.

To supplement the annual delivery reports I have also attached as appendix 5, PAS milestone report for Bridging the Gap, March 2018. Some of the information contained in this document is also exempt under Regulation 11(2) for the reasons specified earlier. Appendix 6 contains details of training delivered in 2019.

Response to 3:
Scottish Government officials will also meet PAS to discuss various aspects of their work and monitor progress against milestones. I hope that you find the information provided helpful.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.