COSLA and Scottish Government's flood risk management working group meetings: EIR release

Information requested

All minutes of meetings of COSLA and the Scottish Government's flood risk management working group since December 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.

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested at Annex A. There have been three meetings of the joint COSLA/SG Funding Group within the timescale specified in your letter (1 January 2023 to 29 April 2024) on the following dates:

• 25 January 2024
• 7 March 2024
• 23 April 2024

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The minutes of the meeting on 23 April are not yet available and therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4) (a) of the EIRs.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the other 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. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’.

Also, some of the information has been withheld under regulations 10(4)(d) (material in the course of completion/unfinished documents). 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. We recognise that there is some public interest in releasing the information as part of an open, transparent and accountable government. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that unfinished or incomplete information is not disclosed when it might misinform the public or give a misleading impression of the Scottish Government’s view or position on the matter to which the information relates.

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 202400411479 - Information Released - Annex

File type

4 page PDF

File size

386.4 kB