Local Authority decisions overruled by Planning and Environmental Appeals Division: EIR release

Information requested

1. The number of Local Authority decisions overruled by the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division in the fiscal year 2023-24.

2. The total amount (in £) the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division has spent on overruling Local Authority decisions in the fiscal year 2023-24.

Response

If I might firstly explain that, because, the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIR’s), 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 :

Question 1 - I can confirm that in the fiscal year 2023-24, out of 339 decisions made by DPEA against decisions made by the local authority, 120 were allowed and 219 were dismissed.
For ease of reference I have attached a table of appeals allowed and dismissed broken down by planning authority in the attached Annex.

Question 2 - 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 in question “2” because this information is not collected by the Scottish Government.

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 planning applications and appeals clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

We are however in a position to provide you with an estimate of appeal costs breakdown relating to this aspect of our work including day to day costs of running the Division. I can confirm appeal work tends to form about 40% of the work we deliver. In 2023-24 40% of DPEA’s budget is £1,712,632.

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 202400409367 - Information released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

14.0 kB