Park Ranger services budget: EIR release

Information requested

1. Please can you confirm the total budget allocated for Park Ranger services in Scotland per annum for the period between 01/09/2014 - 02/09/2024.

2. Please can you confirm the budget allocated to each Council in Scotland for Park Ranger services between the period 01/09/2014 - 01/09/2024.

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.

Question 1 & Question 2

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. This is because we do not hold figures specifically in relation to ‘the total budget allocated for Park Ranger services in Scotland’ or ‘the budget allocated to each Council in Scotland for Park Ranger services’

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

It may be helpful if I explain the Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending and the allocation of ‘budgets’ for specified services.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

None of the allocations provided are classed as ‘budgets’ or set as allocations ‘for’ particular services or spending targets; they are simply an allocation methodology designed to distribute the overall levels of resources to be made available in a way that takes into account all relevant indicators of need. They are not intended to be used by local authorities to allocate resources.

Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to allocate funding and deliver services to their local communities.

Therefore we cannot provide you with a total ‘budget’ that specifically relates only to ‘Park Ranger Services’.

However, I have provided you with some information below that you may find helpful.

From 2020 – 2024, information regarding Scottish Local Government Finance can be found in our published ‘Green Book’.
You can find information on allocations relating to ‘Biodiversity and Ranger Services’ here:

• Biodiversity and Ranger Services - Scottish local government finance - Green Book: 2023-2024
• Local Government Allocation Statistics (Green Book) Previous Years

Prior to 2020, the title ‘Biodiversity and Ranger Services’ did not exist, and allocations were made under the title ‘Scottish

Natural Heritage (SNH) Transfer’. However, these figures were not published as part of the Green Books. I have provided the allocation figures for you below.

To note, the distribution between Local Authorities remained unchanged between 2014 – 2020, and were as follows:

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) Transfer

£m
Aberdeen City	0.032
Aberdeenshire	0.090
Angus	0.064
Argyll & Bute	0.003
Clackmannanshire	0.044
Dumfries & Galloway	0.085
Dundee City	0.043
East Ayrshire	0.032
East Dunbartonshire	0.070
East Lothian	0.101
East Renfrewshire	0.020
Edinburgh, City of	0.085
Eilean Siar	0.026
Falkirk	0.019
Fife	0.178
Glasgow City	0.158
Highland	0.295
Inverclyde	0.094
Midlothian	0.044
Moray	0.048
North Ayrshire	0.127
North Lanarkshire	0.129
Orkney	0.011
Perth & Kinross	0.064
Renfrewshire	0.139
Scottish Borders	0.031
Shetland	0.017
South Ayrshire	0.003
South Lanarkshire	0.151
Stirling	0.052
West Dunbartonshire	0.038
West Lothian	0.067
Total	2.360

In 2020-21 the line was renamed and recalculated, and this coincided with publishing the data in the Green Book, which has been provided.

In addition, the use of Regulation 10(4)(a) 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.

Wider guidance on the Environmental Information regime 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.

Further guidance on the public interest test can also be found on page 8 of the Scottish Information Commissioner guidance.

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.