Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity meeting with Circularity Scotland Ltd individuals on April 13 and 18: EIR release

Information requested

1. “All internal and external correspondence within and sent or received by the Scottish Government including attached documents, meeting handouts, memos, briefings to ministers, attendee lists, location of meeting, notes, minutes, or OneNote memos, linked to Lorna Slater's meeting with Circularity Scotland Ltd individuals on April 13 and 18.”
2. “All internal and external correspondence within and sent or received by the Scottish Government including attached documents, meeting handouts, memos, briefings to ministers, attendee lists, location of meeting, notes, minutes, or OneNote memos, linked to Lorna Slater's meeting with the IMG for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on April 17, 2023.”
3. “All internal and external correspondence within and sent or received by the Scottish Government including attached documents, meeting handouts, memos, briefings to ministers, attendee lists, location of meeting, notes, minutes, or OneNote memos, linked to Lorna Slater's meeting on the Deposit Return Scheme on April 20, 2023.”

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.

Response to your request

Question 1

I have included copies of the requested information in Annex B.

On reviewing materials within the scope of your request, exceptions have been applied in line with the EIRs. The exceptions applied can be found in Annex A.

I also wish to highlight that information included in Annex B makes reference to a meeting held between the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity and Circularity Scotland on 18 April 2023 that was held before the later meetings with producers, retailers and environmental non-government organisations (eNGO’s) to discuss the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). This was a short meeting to inform Circularity Scotland of the change to the launch date for DRS at that time to March 2024, I have included correspondence relating to this meeting for your convenience.

Question 2

I have included copies of the requested information in Annex C.

The Scottish Government has previously published minutes for the 17 April 2023 Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) meeting referred to in your second question which can be found here. Additional correspondence relating to said meeting can be found in Annex C.

On reviewing materials within the scope of your request, exceptions have been applied in line with the EIRs. The exceptions applied can be found in Annex A.

Question 3

I have included copies of the requested information in Annex D.

On reviewing materials within the scope of your request, exceptions have been applied in line with the EIRs. The exceptions applied can be found in Annex A.

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.

FOI 202300369454 - Information Released - Annex A - D

File type

58 page PDF

File size

482.7 kB