Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) Legal costs: FOI release

Information requested

1. The cost of any legal advice - either from the Scottish Government's legal directorate or from external advisers/counsel - around the decision to pause the implementation of the Deposit Return Scheme.
2. The cost of any legal advice - either from the Scottish Government's legal directorate or from external advisers/counsel - in regards to legal challenges, potential and actual, around the planned short-term let licensing system.
3. The cost of any legal advice - either from the Scottish Government's legal directorate or from external advisers/counsel - in regards to the release of the register of interests of senior civil servants.

Response

Question 1:

We enclose some of the information you requested.

The cost of legal advice from external advisers/Counsel around the decision to pause the implementation of the Deposit Return Scheme is £14,760.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. It may help if I explain that legal advice can be provided both internally and externally and that Scottish Government staff do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of time spent providing advice on matters. It is therefore not possible to provide the cost of legal advice from the Scottish Government’s Legal Directorate around the decision to pause the implementation of the Deposit Return Scheme.

Question 2:

As set out above, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. As explained above, legal advice can be provided both internally and externally and that Scottish Government staff do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of time spent providing advice on matters. It is therefore not possible to provide the cost of legal advice from the Scottish Government’s Legal Directorate in regard to legal challenges, potential and actual, around the planned short-term let licensing system.

Question 3

As explained above, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. Again, as set out above, legal advice can be provided both internally and externally and that Scottish Government staff do not, as a matter of course, record the proportion of time spent providing advice on matters. It is therefore not possible to provide the cost of legal advice from the Scottish Government’s Legal Directorate in regard to the release of the register of interests of senior civil servants.

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