ScotWind drawdown funding meetings: EIR release

Information requested

• A list of all internal and external meetings where drawing down ScotWind funding was discussed since 23 January 2024.
• All briefing materials and agendas of these meetings.
• All minutes of these meetings.
• All correspondence relating to these meetings and this topic.

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.

You asked for “a list of all internal and external meetings where drawing down ScotWind funding was discussed since 23 January 2024”. For these purposes, “drawing down ScotWind funding” has been interpreted as any discussion relating to the drawdown or potential use of ScotWind or Crown Estate revenue as funding for the Scottish Budget.

The list below includes meetings which are held on a regular (weekly or monthly) basis which could have included discussion of ScotWind drawdown, as well as one-off meetings with a reference to ScotWind or Crown Estate revenue.

• “Weekly Finance meeting” – Weekly meeting between senior officials and Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government;
• “CES SG ScotWind Finance catch up” – Informal monthly meeting between Crown Estate Scotland, and Offshore Wind and Finance officials;
• 25 March – Budget Meeting – Meeting between Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance and officials;
• 2 April – Medium Term Financial Strategy Approach discussion – Meeting between Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government and officials;
• 22 April - Funding Governance Group – Meeting between senior officials;
• 25 June – Cabinet Meeting;
• 31 July – 2024-25 SG Finances – Meeting between First Minister, Special Advisors and senior officials;
• 14 August – September Fiscal Statement – Meeting between Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government and officials;
• 27 August – Update from Finance officials and consequentials – Meeting between First Minister, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Special Advisors and senior officials;

You also requested all briefing materials, agendas and minutes of these meetings, as well as all correspondence relating to these meetings and this topic. I enclose copies of some of the information you requested in the Annex to this letter.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) applies to some of the information you have requested. These documents contain highly sensitive information related to policy decisions on the Scottish Budget which have not yet been finalised. This exception is applicable as releasing these documents could influence policy decisions which are still under development.

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 release to support transparency and scrutiny of Budget policy decisions. However, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring that policy which is still under development is not disclosed early. There is greater public interest in high quality policy and decision-making, and in the properly considered implementation and development of policies and decisions. This means Ministers and officials need to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications. Their candour in doing so will be affected by their assessment on whether the discussions on the Scottish Budget will be disclosed before finalisation, when it is still under discussion and development.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the 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.

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 202400430251- Information released - Annex

File type

47 page PDF

File size

1.4 MB