EIR/202400429732 · FOI/EIR · not held
Park Ranger services budget: EIR release
Information requested
1. Please can you confirm the total budget allocated for Park Ranger services in Scotland per annum for the period between 01/09/2014 - 02/09/2024.
2. Please can you confirm the budget allocated to each Council in Scotland for Park Ranger services between the period 01/09/2014 - 01/09/2024.
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 & Question 2
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. This is because we do not hold figures specifically in relation to ‘the total budget allocated for Park Ranger services in Scotland’ or ‘the budget allocated to each Council in Scotland for Park Ranger services’
Therefore, this is a formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs confirming that the Scottish Government does not hold this information.
It may be helpful if I explain the Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending and the allocation of ‘budgets’ for specified services.
The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.
None of the allocations provided are classed as ‘budgets’ or set as allocations ‘for’ particular services or spending targets; they are simply an allocation methodology designed to distribute the overall levels of resources to be made available in a way that takes into account all relevant indicators of need. They are not intended to be used by local authorities to allocate resources.
Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to allocate funding and deliver services to their local communities.
Therefore we cannot provide you with a total ‘budget’ that specifically relates only to ‘Park Ranger Services’.
However, I have provided you with some information below that you may find helpful.
From 2020 – 2024, information regarding Scottish Local Government Finance can be found in our published ‘Green Book’. You can find information on allocations relating to ‘Biodiversity and Ranger Services’ here:
Biodiversity and Ranger Services - Scottish local government finance - Green Book: 2023-2024 Local Government Allocation Statistics (Green Book) Previous Years
Prior to 2020, the title ‘Biodiversity and Ranger Services’ did not exist, and allocations were made under the title ‘Scottish
Natural Heritage (SNH) Transfer’. However, these figures were not published as part of the Green Books. I have provided the allocation figures for you below.
To note, the distribution between Local Authorities remained unchanged between 2014 – 2020, and were as follows:
Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) Transfer
£m Aberdeen City 0.032 Aberdeenshire 0.090 Angus 0.064 Argyll & Bute 0.003 Clackmannanshire 0.044 Dumfries & Galloway 0.085 Dundee City 0.043 East Ayrshire 0.032 East Dunbartonshire 0.070 East Lothian 0.101 East Renfrewshire 0.020 Edinburgh, City of 0.085 Eilean Siar 0.026 Falkirk 0.019 Fife 0.178 Glasgow City 0.158 Highland 0.295 Inverclyde 0.094 Midlothian 0.044 Moray 0.048 North Ayrshire 0.127 North Lanarkshire 0.129 Orkney 0.011 Perth & Kinross 0.064 Renfrewshire 0.139 Scottish Borders 0.031 Shetland 0.017 South Ayrshire 0.003 South Lanarkshire 0.151 Stirling 0.052 West Dunbartonshire 0.038 West Lothian 0.067 Total 2.360
In 2020-21 the line was renamed and recalculated, and this coincided with publishing the data in the Green Book, which has been provided.
In addition, the use of Regulation 10(4)(a) is subject to the ‘public interest test’. It is important to note that although we do not hold the information and have applied Regulation 10(4)(a) – information not held, it is a requirement that we have to apply the public interest test.
Wider guidance on the Environmental Information regime can be found in the Key Concepts section under ‘Information Not Held’ and ‘The Public Interest Test’ in the attached Scottish Information Commissioner Briefings and Guidance document.
Further guidance on the public interest test can also be found on page 8 of the Scottish Information Commissioner guidance.
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 Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrews 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. This is because we do not hold figures specifically in relation to ‘the total budget allocated for Park Ranger services in Scotland’ or ‘the budget allocated to each Council in Scotland for Park Ranger services’ Therefore, this is a formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs confirming that the Scottish Government does not hold this information.
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