Communications with Petroineos: EIR release

Information requested

1. Copies of all communication between Petroineos and Scottish Government ministers and officials between January 1st 2023 and 22nd November 2023 inclusive.

2. Minutes of all meetings between Petroineos and Scottish Government ministers and officials between January 1st 2023 and 22nd November 2023 inclusive.

3. Copies of all reports relating to Petroineos and/or the Grangemouth refinery completed and/or circulated within the Scottish Government between January 1st 2023 and 22nd November 2023 inclusive.

4. Copies of all communication to and from Scottish Government ministers and officials regarding Petroineos and/or the Grangemouth refinery between January 1st 2023 and 22nd November 2023 inclusive.

5. All information held relating to the meeting between the Scottish Government and Petroineos on the 21st November as reported here (https://news.stv.tv/scotland/scotlands-only-oil-refinery-to-shut-with-hundreds-of-jobs-at-risk-atgrangemouth#)

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

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under the exception at regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs a public authority may refuse a request for information if it is ‘manifestly unreasonable’. The Scottish Information Commissioner’s guidance on the regulation 10(4)(b) exception at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/Law/EIRs/EIRsExceptions.aspx notes that there may “be instances where it is appropriate for the Commissioner to consider the proportionality of the burden on the public authority in terms of the costs and resources involved in dealing with a request when considering the application of this exception”.

In this case, the information retained on our internal records system relating to the keywords ‘Petroineos’, ‘Petroineos report’, and ‘Grangemouth Refinery’ is exceedingly voluminous which makes us unable to complete this request even if we were to apply regulation 7 (1). For these reasons, we consider that questions 1, 3, and 4 of your request are manifestly unreasonable and so we are refusing your request for information pertaining to these questions under regulation 10(4)(b). Materials retained on our internal records system relating to questions 2 and 5 of your request are attached in ANNEX A. Regulation 11(b) and Regulation 10 5(e) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs) have been applied to these materials.

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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about correspondence between Scottish Government officials, advisors and ministers and, Ineos and the topic of the Grangemouth Oil Refinery, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective use of public resources by not incurring excessive costs when complying with information requests.

As we would do with any business of such significance, Ministers routinely engage with Grangemouth operators.

You may wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order to make it manageable:

• Reducing the timeframe to a few months (for example September 2023 to November 2023) instead of the entirety of 2023.
• Being more specific about the type of information you want regarding communications between Scottish Government officials, advisors and ministers regarding the Grangemouth refinery. Due to the importance of this asset to the economy and fuel security, officials across various parts of the Scottish Government engage with PetroIneos regularly. Therefore, if we knew what your area of interest is, it would help to direct the request to the responsible policy leads.
• Reducing the number of questions in your overall request.

You may also find it helpful to consult the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on this website: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

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 202300386266 - Information Released - Annex A

File type

7 page PDF

File size

222.4 kB