Queries relating to the Deer Working Group: EIR release

Information requested

1: “I would like to know how much the deer working group cost the public purse from its start until its full completion or when recommendations were placed with government official,s please. Can all costs be included eg sub groups advisor travel etc.?”

2: “Can i also ask how many full members there were in the working group at the beginning and how many working group member's there were at its completion excluding any out side advisor,s”

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
The total expenditure by the Scottish Government for the Deer Working Group was £133,635.01.

Question 2
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. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

The Scottish Government has previously published the full membership of the Deer Working Group which can be found here. I have included a list of the members below for your convenience:

• Simon Pepper OBE (Chair)
• Andrew Barbour (Acting Chair from 18 September 2018)
• Dr Jayne Glass
• Robin Callander

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.