Rural Delivery Plan costs and queries: EIR release

Information requested

“The number and total of staff who work on the Rural Delivery Plan, broken down by role/level, and year. The total cost spent on the Rural Delivery Plan so far, broken down by year and expense category. Any correspondence (including emails, letters, phone calls, handwritten notes, WhatsApp messages or any other documents) relating to the lack of progression on the Rural Delivery Plan.”

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.

“The number and total of staff who work on the Rural Delivery Plan, broken down by role/level, and year. The total cost spent on the Rural Delivery Plan so far, broken down by year and expense category. Any correspondence (including emails, letters, phone calls, handwritten notes, WhatsApp messages or any other documents) relating to the lack of progression on the Rural Delivery Plan.”

1. The number and total of staff who work on the Rural Delivery Plan, broken down by role/level, and year.

We are unable to provide the number and total of staff who work on the Rural Delivery Plan broken down by role/level, and year.

This is because there is no business requirement for Scottish Government officials to allocate their time spent working on different tasks they perform, in this case for the Rural Delivery Plan. We do not therefore hold details of the time spent by individuals undertaking work for the Rural Delivery Plan.

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

We can however inform you of that the Rural Delivery Plan Ministerial Working Group is supported by officials from the Rural Delivery Policy Team within the Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands portfolio.

At the moment the Rural Delivery Policy Team consists of the following officials:

RURAL DELIVERY POLICY TEAM (5 officials)

Team Leader (grade C1)

Policy Manager (grade B3)

Policy Manager (grade B3)

Policy Officer (grade B2)

Policy Officer (grade B2)

2. The total cost spent on the Rural Delivery Plan so far, broken down by year and expense category.

Thus far, as of 30th September 2024, there has been no direct cost incurred in production of the Rural Delivery Plan beyond staffing costs and associated expenses, although it is expected that modest budget will be required for development and production of the Plan. (As noted under point 1 above, we are unable to provide the number and total of staff who work on the Rural Delivery Plan broken down by role/level, and year – see above for further detail).

3. Any correspondence (including emails, letters, phone calls, handwritten notes, WhatsApp messages or any other documents) relating to the lack of progression on the Rural Delivery Plan.

We have not identified any correspondence ‘relating to the lack of Progression on the Rural Delivery Plan’.

Additional information provided out with the EIRs

Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to provide information on the progress of the Rural Delivery Plan. The work on the Rural Delivery Plan for developing and publishing the Plan by the end of the current Parliament remains on-track. The publication of the plan is expected to take place in summer/autumn of 2025. The progress towards publication of the Rural Delivery Plan was also outlined at the recent Ministerial Working Group meeting on 1 October. The minutes of this meeting will be soon publicly available on Rural Delivery Plan: Ministerial Working Group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

ANNEX

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information

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 response.

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 you asked, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.