Publication - FOI/EIR release

Response to Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) in June 2022: EIR release

Published: 15 August 2024
Directorate: Local Government and Housing Directorate
Topic: Public sector
FOI reference: EIR/202300384757
Date received: 13 November 2023
Date responded: 12 December 2023

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Information requested

On the 18th June 2022, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service sent a Scottish Government official an email with the subject Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC). In this email, the official was asked if work was being done by Building Safety Division (BSD) to identify RAAC in buildings in Scotland. Please provide me with the response that SRFS was given to this email as well as any other emails or documents which discuss this email and what the Scottish Government’s response would be.

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

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested.

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(5)(a) of the EIRs applies to some the information you have requested.

As the exception is conditional we have applied the 'public interest test'. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.

Further, an exception under regulation 10(4)(d) of the EIRs applies to some the information you have requested.

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.