Single Species Threshold in UK Forestry Standards: EIR release

Information requested

I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act to request information pertaining to the deliberations behind the single species threshold in the UK Forestry Standard 2023 (UKFS). Specifically, I seek access to all relevant correspondence and communications involving Scottish Forestry, including but not limited to emails, memos, reports, and meeting minutes, related to the formulation of the single species threshold of 65% in the UKFS. This request covers the period from 3rd October 2020 to 31st December 2023. For clarity, I refer to the threshold mentioned in the UKFS as follows: “maintain or establish a diverse composition across the forest management unit so that no more than 65% of the area is allocated to a single species.” I would prefer to receive the information electronically. Thank you for your assistance with this matter.

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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal data relating to a third party) applies to some of the information you have requested. This information has been redacted. There is other information, within the documents being sent to you which is out of scope of the question and therefore this information has also been redacted.

One of the documents, a published report on the analysis consultation response of the 2nd stakeholder consultation is available on the Scottish Forestry website: https://consult.gov.scot/scottish-forestry/e8d0808b.

ANNEX A 

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION 

Personal data relating to third party 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.

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.