Scotwind lease contract correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

1. Any correspondence, including letters, memos, or briefings, exchanged between the Scottish Government and external organizations, think tanks, or experts in relation to Scotwind lease contracts in the year 2022-23.

2. A list of all leases granted to companies by Scotwind from 30 June 2020 to the present date.

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.

1. Any correspondence, including letters, memos, or briefings, exchanged between the Scottish Government and external organizations, think tanks, or experts in relation to Scotwind lease contracts in the year 2022-23.

ScotWind is the offshore wind leasing round ran by the Public Corporation, Crown Estate Scotland. The leasing round resulted in projects securing seabed option agreements. Full seabed leases can be granted by Crown Estate Scotland once developers have the necessary consents, licences, and finance.

Given the above, we have taken “in relation to Scotwind lease contracts” to mean “in relation to ScotWind option agreements”. We have also interpreted your request as being the financial year from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. Please submit a further request if you would like further information out with that period.

As the ScotWind lease round was conducted by Crown Estate Scotland, the Scottish Government holds limited correspondence in scope of your request.

• I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested. Please find attached 3 pdf documents (all records of email chains) found in scope of your request.
• Within item 3, some of the information you have requested is available from Crown Estate Scotland’s website already at the following web link: https://www.crownestatescotland.com/news/three-scotwind-clearing-project-agreementsconfirmed. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.
• While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulation 11(2) (personal data of a third party) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

2. A list of all leases granted to companies by Scotwind from 30 June 2020 to the present date

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

However, you may wish to contact Crown Estate Scotland at FreedomofInformation@crownestatescotland.com who may be able to help you.

Additional information provided out with the EIRs

Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to advise you that the details of the 20 projects that were offered option agreements by Crown Estate Scotland can be found at the links below:

• Options awarded to an initial 17 projects following the leasing process – https://www.crownestatescotland.com/news/scotwind-offshore-wind-leasing-delivers-major-boost-to-scotlands-net-zero-aspirations
• A further three options were awarded following the completion of the clearing process - https://www.crownestatescotland.com/news/three-shetland-scotwind-projects-announced

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 because the Scottish Government is not responsible for the ScotWind leasing round, which was conducted by Crown Estate Scotland.

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 ScotWind leases, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Regulation 11(2) – applicant has asked for personal data of a third party

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 https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202400436697 - Information released - Annex

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PDF

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462.8 kB