FOI/202500461365 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Nature Restoration Fund: EIR release
Information requested
1. A breakdown in the split of the Nature Restoration Fund between local authorities and NatureScot over the last five years. 2. How much funding councils will receive from the Nature Restoration Fund in 2025-26? 3. Whether the £5 million redirected from the fund last year will be returned this year?
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
NRF – Allocations 2021-22 to 2025-26
2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 2024/25 2025/26 Capital (£m) Resour ce (£m) Capital (£m) Resour ce (£m) Capital (£m) Resource (£m) Capital (£m) Resource (£m) Capital (£m) Resource (£m) Nature Scot 5 4.5 2.75 6 2.75 6 2.75 6 2.75 EP (LAs & NPs) 5 6.5 10.5 7.5 2.5
Question 2
In 2025-26 the Scottish Government will allocate £5 million (£2.5 million capital and £2.5 million revenue funding) to Scottish Local Authorities as part of the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF). This is known as the Edinburgh Process strand of the NRF to be spent in 2025-26 to support new, or to enhance existing, approaches to restoring biodiversity.
Question 3 In addition to the 2025-26 funding allocation, there will be a replacement of £5 million NRF funding that was redirected to the local government pay deal in 2024-25. A full breakdown of the 2025-26 council allocation is listed below:
LOCAL AUTHORITY REVENUE CAPITAL Aberdeen City 0.070 0.196 Aberdeenshire 0.081 0.332 Angus 0.086 0.224 Argyll & Bute 0.084 0.350 City of Edinburgh 0.082 0.208 Clackmannanshire 0.054 0.150 Dumfries & Galloway 0.152 0.365 Dundee City 0.059 0.125 East Ayrshire 0.053 0.148 East Dunbartonshire 0.066 0.197 East Lothian 0.068 0.163 East Renfrewshire 0.045 0.090 Falkirk 0.075 0.258 Fife 0.168 0.546 Glasgow City 0.117 0.206 Highland 0.102 0.494 Inverclyde 0.066 0.221 Midlothian 0.053 0.150 Moray 0.077 0.181 Na h-Eileanan Siar 0.058 0.185 North Ayrshire 0.073 0.260 North Lanarkshire 0.120 0.401 Orkney Islands 0.049 0.079 Perth & Kinross 0.094 0.268 Renfrewshire 0.058 0.149 Scottish Borders 0.063 0.240 Shetland Islands 0.046 0.119 South Ayrshire 0.048 0.138 South Lanarkshire 0.142 0.393 Stirling 0.056 0.172 West Dunbartonshire 0.058 0.185 West Lothian 0.078 0.308 Total 2.500 7.500
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Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
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.
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