Homes for Scotland communications about energy efficiency standards in buildings: FOI release

Information requested

The Scottish Government has been consulting on energy efficiency standards in buildings.

Homes for Scotland are actively lobbying MSPs on this issue and therefore I would be grateful if you could send me all records held by the Scottish Government of communications between ministers, special advisers or senior civil servants working on this issue and the industry group.

This may include, but should not be limited to, formal consultation responses, meeting and telephone call records, internal discussions about Homes for Scotland policy proposals, and instant messages
sent between Scottish Government staff or ministers and Homes for Scotland representatives. I am interested in records relevant to the issues in the consultation, dating back 12 months prior to the formal launch of the consultation.

For the avoidance of doubt, I advise that ‘senior civil servants’ are categorised as those acting at Deputy Director level and above and confirm that this categorisation has been applied in providing the below response to your request. I also confirm that, as per the scope of your request, a search has been undertaken to identify all relevant records dated between 26 July 2020 and 7 February 2022 (inclusive).

Response

I enclose the following documents that satisfy your request:

1. Email from Homes for Scotland (HfS) to Minister for Public Finance, Planning & Community Wealth re. response to Building Standards Section 6 (Energy) consultation – 9 December 2021

1a. Letter from HfS to Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning & Community Wealth, re. Building Standards Section 6 (Energy) consultation – 9 December 2021

1b. HfS Energy consultation response position paper – November 2021

1c. HfS response to Energy consultation questions – 25 November 2021

1d. Email response to HfS request to meet with Tom Arthur, Minister for Public Finance, Planning & Community Wealth – 10 January 2022

2. Email from HfS to Stephen Garvin, Building Standards Division DD, re. Section 6 (Energy) consultation response – 25 November 2021

2a. HfS Energy consultation response position paper – November 2021

2b. Response submitted by HfS to Building Standards Energy consultation – 25 November 2021

3. Note of call - Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights with HfS – 18 November 2021

4. Email chain between Building Standards Division and HfS re. HfS request to extend Energy consultation closing date – 6 October 2021

5. Letter from HfS requesting to meet with Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights – 2 September 2021

5a. Email response to HfS request to meet with Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights – 17 September 2021

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, please note an exemption under section 38(1) (Personal Information) of FOISA applies to documents 1, 1c, 1d, 2, 2b, 3, 4 and 5a and therefore personal data relating to third parties included in these documents has been redacted. This is because disclosing this information would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

This exemption 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 exemption.

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FOI 202200278380 - Information released - Annex A - (1-5a)

File type

69 page PDF

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1.3 MB