Rural payments: EIR release

Information requested

1. The details of all Rural Payments made with respect to the land within the boundary map provided, identified by you as the Broadmeadows Estate.
2. The name of the organisation or organisations receiving rural payments;
3. A complete breakdown of these payments, including individual items paid for under the Agri Environment Climate Scheme;
4. The number of hectares for which payments were made; and
5. The totals for each year, for the last eight years.

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.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

A search has identified one business which has received rural payments within the map area provided. Please note, as the payment window for some 2022 schemes is still open, the information provided for 2022 is the position as of the date of this letter.

Business: A J Telfer & Co

Year	Details of all Rural Payments made	Total
2015	RP, LFASS, BPS, GR	£43,783.51
2016	RP, FGS, LFASS, BPS, GR	£50,278.87
2017	RP, AECS, LFASS, BPS, GR	£90,864.67
2018	RP, FGS, AECS, BPS, GR	£152,962.13
2019	RP, FGS, AECS, BPS, GR	£669,990.32
2020	RP, FGS, AECS, BPS, GR	£97,235.10
2021	RP, FGS, AECS, LFASS, BPS, GR	£99,127.98
2022	LFASS, BPS, GR	£38,073.59

RP - Rural Priorities

FGS - Forestry Grants Scheme

AECS - Agri Environment Climate Scheme

LFASS - Less Favoured Area Support Scheme

BPS - Basic Payment Scheme

GR – Greening

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information in the format (ie. detailed breakdown) you have requested because an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is information related to a small partnership which we consider personal information according to the definition of UK GDPR, 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.