Heat in buildings working groups: EIR release

Information requested

• Copies of the agendas, minutes and supporting documents for the Scottish Government’s heat in buildings working groups
• A breakdown of the cost to the government, in terms of staff time and resources, and any costs in securing external services, involved in the consultation on the Government’s proposed heat in buildings standards.

After seeking further clarification on the scope of the term ‘heat in buildings working groups’ you specified this was in relation to the consultation on the primary legislation to introduce heat in buildings standards by the Scottish Government as referred to in Action number 82 on page 90 of the Government’s heat in buildings strategy’.

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.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. The information provided is in relation to the two working groups which were identified as in scope of your request as follows:

• Tenements Short Life Working Group
• Non Domestic Working Group

Most of the information you requested in your first point (copies of agendas, minutes and supporting documents for Scottish Government Heat in Buildings Working Groups relating to a consultation on Heat in Buildings standards) can be found in the two PDF documents attached to this response.

One document (the Call for Evidence as part of the Non Domestic Working Group) is available online at the following link: httpswww.gov.scotpublicationsregulation-energy-efficiency-existing-non-domesticbuilding. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Please note the figures used on pages 9 and 14 within the 'Presentation for the 3rd Meeting' of the Non Domestic Working Group are illustrative in order to explain the point being made by the speaker. These figures would have been accompanied by an oral discussion of which we do not have a record. As such, the intention of these figures should not be viewed as accurate data intended to inform policy.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some 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. The exception has been applied in the form of individual redactions within the document to protect personal data.

Two documents have been withheld under regulation 10(4)(d) of the EIRs (material in the course of completion). This is as these documents are being finalised for release currently and will be made publicly available shortly.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRS (information not held) applies to the second point of your request. This is as Scottish Government staff members are not contracted to work 100% on the working group(s) and do not record their time/resource spent on the working group(s) specifically. As such, we do not hold a record of the staff resource costs associated with the two identified working groups.

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 202300382181 - Information Released - Tenements SLWG

File type

74 page PDF

File size

11.0 MB

FOI 202300382181 - Information Released - Non Dom WG

File type

80 page PDF

File size

12.7 MB