Agriculture and rural development stakeholder and agriculture reform implementation oversight group: EIR release

Information requested

1. When did the Agriculture and Rural Development Stakeholder Group last meet?

2. The minutes of the last meeting of the Agriculture and Rural Development Stakeholder Group

3. How often does the Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board meet?

4. How long does a meeting of the Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board last?

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.

1. The Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) Stakeholder Group last met on 14 March 2023.

2. The minutes of the above meeting have been published and are available to view here.

3. For further information on the Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board (ARIOB), including meeting frequency, I include a link to the Board's Terms of Reference which is periodically reviewed.

4. An in-person meeting of the board is an all-day event. Ad-hoc online gatherings on specific topics are typically shorter.

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.