Coronavirus Financial Relief for Sporting Businesses: FOI release

Information requested

 

• To ask the Scottish Government what the reasoning is behind the exclusion of businesses operating on ‘shootings’, ‘deer forests’ and ‘game larders’ from the small business support grant.
• To ask the Scottish Government what the reasoning is behind the decision to not give sporting businesses a 100% sporting rates relief.
• To ask the Scottish Government what the reasoning behind the exclusion of sporting businesses from the retail, hospitality and leisure support grant.

In addition to the above, I would like to request full disclosure of all internal correspondence pertaining to these matters

Response

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance recently responded to written parliamentary questions on the reasons for exclusion of ‘shootings’, deer forests’ and ‘game larders’, from the Business Support Grant Scheme and the Retail, Hospitality, Leisure and Airport Relief.
These can be found at the following links, S5W-28278, S5W-28279.

While the aim of the Scottish Government is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exemptions under section 30(b) (i), of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) applies to that information. The reasons why these exemptions apply are explained at the bottom of this letter.

An exemption under section 30(b) (i) of FOISA (free and frank provision of advice) applies to some of the information you have requested. This exemption applies because disclosure would, or would be likely to, inhibit substantially the free and frank provision of advice. This exemption recognises the need for officials to have a private space within which to provide free and frank advice to ministers before the Scottish Government reaches a settled public view. Disclosing the content of free and frank advice would substantially inhibit the provision of such advice in the future.

An exemption under section s.38 (1) (b) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested. This exemption applies to data that it is considered to be the personal data. This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Where the content of a document is considered personal data, this information has been redacted.

The Scottish Government does hold some documents that fall within the scope of your request.
Where the content of a document pertains to information that is not considered within the scope of your request, this information has been redacted. I have enclosed PDF attachments of the documents that fall within the scope of your request. I have attached below a table of the  documents that have been provided to you. The dates listed are those of the most recent correspondence in an email chain. Note that an initial forwarding email will feature at the top of any correspondence in order to overcome a quirk of the Scottish Government archive system.

Table of Documents

8 April 2020	Correspondence – 8 April – 19:27
9 April 2020	Correspondence – 9 April – 14:39
9 April 2020	Correspondence – 9 April – 17:09

Table of the number of properties by subject type:

CORE	NUMBER	SELECTED
Shooting Range	30	No
Shootings	9,120	No

The number of properties is rounded to the nearest 10. For cores with 5 or fewer properties, the number is set to 5 to keep the cores included.

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.