Internal communications on presumed limit of land ownership: EIR release

Information requested

Under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, I would like to request the following information: All internal communications involving relevant Ministers, Special Advisors, or ministerial staff, relating tothe topic of a presumed limit on land ownership, from 06/05/2021 to present. 

Communication would include, but would not necessarily be limited to: email chains (including attachments), Teams (or similar) messages, Whatsapp (or similar messages), and records of phone
calls.

Please provide this information digitally, such as in .pdf format.

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.

1.I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested

2.While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide most of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations 10(4)(e) (internal communications) and 11(2) (Personal data relating to third party) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why those exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

ANNEX

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

Exceptions apply

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 Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. 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.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) also applies to some of the information because it is internal communication between Scottish Government officials and Scottish Ministers. This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have found that, in some of the information you have requested, on balance the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining high quality policy and decision-making, and in the properly considered implementation and development of briefing material, policies and decisions. This means that Ministers and officials need to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications. 

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 - 202300377903 - Information released - Annex

File type

28 page PDF

File size

3.4 MB