Annual report of planning, architecture, and environment from 2008: EIR release

Information requested

1. All Scottish Government annual reports for 'Planning & Architecture' (or equivalent) from 2008 onward (except 2014/15 and 2015/16).

2. All Directorate of Planning & Environmental annual reports from 2008 to 2019/20.

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.

Included are some of the documents requested;

• PAD’s Annual Reports for 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, and 2020/21;
• PARD’s Annual Reports for 2021/22 and 2022/23, and;
• DPEA’s Annual Reviews for 2008/09, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, and 2019/20.

Please note that PARD was previously Planning and Architecture Division (PAD), and prior to that the Directorate for the Built Environment (DBE). DPEA was previously the Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals.

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information
Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because Annual Reports were not produced by the DBE between 2008/09 and 2012/13, or by PAD in 2012/13 and 2019/20.

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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in copies of the requested Annual Reports, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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.