Energy Consents Unit workforce: EIR release

Information requested

1. The number of posts in the Energy Consents Unit, the banding of these posts and the FTE equivalent number of people on each band as at April 2024.
2. The total operating budget allocated to the Energy Consents Unit for financial years (a) 2024/25, (b) 2023/24 and (c) 2022/23.
3. The average number of working hours it took to process an Environmental Impact Assessment for Screening, an Environmental Impact Assessment Scoping Request, a Gate Check Stage 1 and a Gate Check Stage 2 for in a) 2021, b) 2022 and c) 2023.
4. The average length of time from an application for consent submission to Scottish Minister determination in a) 2021, b) 2022 and c) 2023.

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

The answers to your questions are:

Band	Number of posts	FTE
A4	1	1
B1	6	6
B2	8	5.12
B3	15	11.81
C1	6	5.86
C2	1	1

The Energy Consents Unit has no operating budget specifically allocated, as it is expected to break even after expenditure and staff costs have been deducted from income collected.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because the processing of an application involves work across a number of teams within the Energy Consents Unit.

We do not centrally log or track the specific number of working hours spent by individual team members on any particular activity or task. The work is integrated into the broader responsibilities and workflows of the team. It is therefore not possible to calculate the average number of working hours spent processing in the years requested.

This exception 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 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 processing time, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

The average time, from submission of an application to determination from Scottish Ministers, is as follows:

• For applications determined in 2021 – 404 day average
• For applications determined in 2022 – 275 day average
• For applications determined in 2023 – 434 day average

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.