Rural payments and/or payment commitments made to the Leckie Estate: EIR release

Information requested

1. Full breakdown of all rural payments and/or payment commitments made to the Leckie Estate in the last six years as defined by the shaded area below.

2. This must include a detailed breakdown of AECS payments (if any), individual payments and/or contract commitments for other items such as gorse removal, rhododendron removal and forestry grant schemes, even if the work is not yet completed.

3. Please provide the breakdown by each year and the individual(s)/organisation(s) that these payments were for.

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

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. 

A search has identified three businesses which have received rural payments within the map area provided. 

Business: D I Rock Farming Co 

Scheme	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
BPS	£21,946.03	£22,699.01	£23,004.11	£24,101.94	0	0
GR	£10,765.04	£10,765.56	£10,797.90	£11,070.24	0	0
LFASS	£14,960.60	£14,960.94	£11,966.94	£9,118.96	0	0
SSBSS	£4,120.60	0	0	0	0	0
Total	£51,792.27	£48,425.51	£45,768.95	£44,291.14	0	0

Note, LFASS scheme years 2019 and 2020 had a reduction to the payment rate to 80% and 40% of the 2018 payment rate respectively 

Business: Leckie Estate 

Scheme	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
RP	£7,400.00	0	0	0	0	0
Total	£7,400.00	0	0	0	0	0

Business: Leckie Partnership 

Scheme	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
BPS	0	0	0	0	0	£24,338.75
GR	0	0	0	0	0	£11,139.89
Total	0	0	0	0	0	£35,478.64

BPS - Basic Payment Scheme

GR - Greening 

LFASS - Less Favoured Area Support Scheme

SSBSS - Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme

RP - Rural Priorities 

None of the business have any AECS commitments or payments. 

One business under the name of Leckie Partnership do have a contract under the Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS) but as yet they have received no payments. As the FGS is administered by Scottish Forestry, if you require any information on any claims submitted by Leckie Partnership you will need to send a separate request for information to them. They can be contacted by e-mail at: scottish.forestry@forestry.gov.scot 

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information in the format (ie. detailed breakdown) you have requested because an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is information related to small partnerships which we consider personal information according to the definition of UK GDPR, and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. 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. 

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