Wind farms in Orkney: EIR release

Information requested

Regarding Wind farms in Orkney - Quanterness, Hoy and Faray. "Can you please provide a list of the Ministers involved in the decision and the minutes of the discussion leading up to them being approved?"

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.

Response to your request

In each of the three cases, the Minister involved in the decision was Tom Arthur, the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth at the time. We do not hold any minutes of any discussion leading up to the applications being approved. However, I can explain that in each case, written advice and a recommendation on the application was provided for the Minister in a submission, sent by email by officials to the Minister’s private office. The Minister’s private office responded to officials by email.

As the exception is conditional, we have applied the 'public interest test'. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing 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 the decisions on the Orkney Wind Farms, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective use of public resources by not incurring excessive costs when complying with information requests.

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.