Good Food Nation Plan contributions and correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

1. Could you supply a full list of companies/organisations asked to contribute to the Good Food Nation Plan? Could you say whether they accepted or rejected the invite?

2. Could you supply all correspondence between the Scottish Government and the UK Government about the Good Food Nation Plan, between December 1 2023 and April 30 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.

1. Regarding your first request: Could you supply a full list of companies/organisations asked to contribute to the Good Food Nation Plan? Could you say whether they accepted or rejected the invite?

A) I enclose a copy of all of the information you requested in the format of a spreadsheet listing the companies / organisations asked to contribute to the Good Food Nation Plan. This includes the companies / organisations from the distribution mailing list that Good Food Nation Team officials use to communicate with stakeholders. It also includes organisations that were part of a group that engaged with the consultation on the national Good Food Nation Plan, for example, the Scottish Food Coalition or the Cross-Party Group on Food. The spreadsheet indicates whether these companies / organisations contributed (either directly, or as part of a group response) to the Good Food Nation Plan by responding to the public consultation on the national Good Food Nation Plan.

B) From 24 January 2024 to 22 April 2024 the Scottish Government ran a public consultation on the national Good Food Nation Plan. During this period many organisations / companies were invited to contribute. Steps were taken to encourage widespread engagement, this included producing accessible consultation documents (e.g. easy-read and Gaelic versions), organising five public information stalls and 15 consultation workshops (five online and ten in person, located across Scotland). The consultation was promoted at relevant events and conferences, via traditional and social media, via alerts issued from the consultation website (Citizen Space) and via the distribution of leaflets.

C) We are aware that additional companies / organisations were invited to contribute to the national Good Food Nation Plan, however it is not possible to provide a complete list, as communication regarding the consultation was varied and, some contributions received were anonymised (for example, contributions received during workshops were anonymous).

D) Further information regarding respondents to the consultation on the national Good Food Nation Plan is available online: Published responses for National Good Food Nation Plan: consultation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space This webpage included the published responses to the consultation on the national Good Food Nation Plan. Only answers from respondents who gave permission are published, however all responses are included in the analysis of the consultation, which is available online: National Good Food Nation Plan: consultation analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

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.

2. Regarding your second request: Could you supply all correspondence between the Scottish Government and the UK Government about the Good Food Nation Plan, between December 1 2023 and April 30 2024?

A) We do not hold information regarding your second request and therefore regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs applies i.e. information not held at time of request. We have searched Scottish Government records and have not identified any correspondence about the Good Food Nation Plan between the Scottish Government and the UK Government between December 1 2023 and April 30 2024.

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 202400437468 - Information released - Annex

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