Community Right to Buy applications CB00219 & CB00221: EIR release

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.


FOI reference: FOI/17/02207
Date received: 2 October 2017
Date responded: 22 November 2017

Information requested

You asked for a copy of all correspondence between Scottish Ministers (the Community Land Team) and the Community Body, in relation to Community Right to Buy applications (case refences CB00219 & CB00221). Under regulation 5(2)(a) of the EIRs, our response to your request was due on 30 October 2017. Unfortunately, it took longer than expected to deal with your request because of the volume of paperwork involved and as a result we extended the deadline on 30 October 2017 until 24 November 2017. I apologise for this delay.

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.

We have released information upto the date of the your request (i.e. up till 2 October 2017) and I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested.

Due to the file size and volume of documents released, copies can be provided on request by emailing ceu@gov.scot, quoting the FOI reference number FOI/17/02207.

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 and some of the information you have requested is available publicly (below) or was already supplied to your client under the Community Right to Buy Process under case references CB00219 & CB00221.

  • Registers of Scotland (available here) (you contact them to request copies of the title deeds or can conduct a search yourself via their on-line search facility)

  • Companies House (available here)(search the company name, you can find the Articles of Association and certificate of incorporation)

  • The local Electoral Registration Office https://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/elections (can be contacted to provided details of number of eligible voters and electoral registers)

  • The Scottish Governments website Community Right to Buy (has the model Article of Association and guidance)

  • The application forms and supporting documents are available at the RCIL website Register of Community Interests in Land(by searching under case No. CB00219 or CB00221)

  • Documents were also commissioned by your client and your client should still have these, and should be contacted for such documents.

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.

To comply with Data Protection requirements, we have redacted personal information (signatures/phone numbers/details of 3rd parties not in connection to the community body etc) from within the documents that have been released.

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

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference

Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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