Community Right to Buy application, Isle of Ulva: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/01952
Date received: 25 August 2017
Date responded: 31 August 2017

Information requested

You asked for sight of the 'further information' in regards to the landowner responding to Scottish Ministers request for further information. Which is in relation to the Community Right to Buy application to register an interest in land at Isle of Ulva, associated islands and land at Ulva Ferry (Case ref CB00219).

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.

Due to the file size of the documents released, copies can be provided on request by emailing ceu@gov.scot, quoting the FOI reference number FOI/17/01952.

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. The reason why that exception applies is explained below.

Reasons for not providing information

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. 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. Page 16 is an invoice for photography work. This invoice contains the amount paid for photography work and bank details of the company involved. The fee and bank details have been redacted. Page 22 is a job request document which discloses the fee to be paid to the Bell Ingram following the sale of the land. The fee has been redacted. As this discloses personal information and information that could be used by competing companies for the type of work, this information has been redacted.

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