EIR/202500448876 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Funding awarded under the Rural Payments Scheme which relate to tree planting: EIR release
Information requested
Data detailing funding awarded under the rural payments scheme which relate to tree planting for the year 2023/24. Please list the name of each applicant and the amount of money given to each applicant. Please also provide details of the plantations each applicant was funded to create, providing the location (within the area field), the size and the makeup of trees planted.
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.
Please provide data detailing funding awarded under the rural payments scheme which relate to tree planting for the year 2023/24. Please list the name of each applicant and the amount of money given to each applicant. Please also provide details of the plantations each applicant was funded to create, providing the location, the size and the makeup of trees planted.
We are providing the above requested data detailing funding awarded under the rural payments scheme which relate to tree planting for the years 2018/19 to 2023/24 as well as all available data for the year 2024/25 up to the report run date of 6 February 2025. This data includes the name of each applicant, the amount they were awarded and details of the plantations each applicant was funded to create, providing the location, the size and the makeup of trees planted.
Please find attached the information we hold in relation to your request.
About FOI
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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.