Meetings regarding Land Reform Bill: EIR release

Information requested

Details of meetings between relevant Scottish Government ministers or special advisors and stakeholders regarding land reform (to include the Government’s forthcoming Land Reform Bill, the proposed Land Ownership and Public Interest (Scotland) Bill, and any relevant discussion of the topic of land reform), from 06/05/2021 to present, to include the date of the meeting, the individuals/organisations/companies/etc involved, the nature of the meeting, and what was discussed.

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.

You explained that you would be satisfied with the list of individuals and organisations that have met with the Cabinet Secretary or her representatives, such as SPADs to discuss the forthcoming Land Reform Bill in a way that could have influenced the Governments approach to the Bill.

Therefore, I have attached a list of the meetings with stakeholders that have taken place where the main focus of discussion was the Land Reform Bill or the Bill was discussed in a material way. Although you have not specifically asked for those meetings that included Scottish Government Officials, I have included those as well.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of names of individuals attending the meeting because an exception under regulation reg 11(2) (personal information) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

ANNEX

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

An exception applies

An exception under regulation 11(2) (personal information) of the EIRs applies to some of the information you have requested. Only names of ministers have been 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.

EIR 202300377937 - Information Released - Attachment

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