Correspondence regarding the establishment of a new National Park, swimming pool funding and Edinburgh Airport: FOI release

Information requested

1.  All correspondence received and sent by the Scottish Government, including internally, all briefings and minutes from meetings, regarding the establishment of a new National Park, between January 1 2024 and the date of this FOI.
2. Could you supply any cost/benefit analysis written up for the establishment of a new national park, and how much it will cost to establish a new national park, with a breakdown of costs?
3. How many councils requested some on the £6m of swimming pool funding sent to the Scottish Government through Barnett Consequentials, and could you supply all the correspondence relating to this, and a list of the councils who asked and what the response was?
4. What was the £6m in Barnett Consequentials mentioned above spent on?
5.  All correspondence received and sent by the Scottish Government, including internally, all briefings and minutes from meetings, about the sale of Edinburgh Airport, from between October 1 2023 and the date of this FOI?”

Response

As some of 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 parts of 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 these parts of 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 have noted the relevant legislation and/or regulation that would apply to each of your questions below for your convenience.

Question 1 (EIRs)
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 here says 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, carrying out your request under the EIRs would impose a significant resource and cost burden on the Scottish Government due to the volume of materials that would be considered as a part of said request. For these reasons, we consider that your request is manifestly unreasonable and so we are refusing it under regulation 10(4)(b).

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 regarding the establishment of a new National Park in Scotland, 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.

You may however wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order to make it more manageable due to the number of items identified as in scope of your request based on the criteria you have provided. For example this could be by reducing the date range required. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website here.

Question 2 (EIRs)
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested as the cost of a new National Park depends on a range of factors and cannot be determined until an area has been selected and the proposed boundary, powers and functions of the National Park have been agreed.

It may help if I explain that National Parks in Scotland are centrally funded by the Scottish Government through Grant in Aid. This funding is allocated to the Parks to deliver on the statutory aims of the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 and the functions and duties conferred on the Parks. The costs of establishing and running a new National Park in Scotland will be considered by the Scottish Parliament before final decisions are made.

Therefore, this is a formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs confirming that the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. It is important to note that although we do not hold the information and have applied Regulation 10(4)(a) – information not held, it is a requirement that we have to apply the public interest test.

Under regulation 5(1) of the EIRs, a Scottish public authority that holds environmental information must make it available when requested to do so. This duty is not absolute. In some cases, information is excepted from disclosure, under regulations 10 and 11 of the EIRs. However, all of the exceptions in regulation 10 (and parts of regulation 11) are subject to a public interest test. To clarify, even though we do not hold the information, because we are using EIRs Exception 10(4)(a) in response to your request, we are required to apply a public interest test.

Guidance can be found in the Key Concepts section under ‘Information Not Held’ and ‘The Public Interest Test’ in the attached Scottish Information Commissioner Briefings and Guidance document.

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 202400403942 - Information Released - Annex A-C

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