Companies funded by SE in the past 12 months including PERF: FOI release (reference 4832)

10 July 2020

31 July 2020

Show me who you've given money to in the past 12 months, including this Pivotal Fund: Can I see your list of companies that you have allocated the Pivotal funding to?

A clarification email was sent to you on the 29th of July regarding your request, to ask if you would be able to make the first part of your request more specific. We are grateful for your reply to this email, which you sent on the same day, the 29th of July. In your reply, you explained in detail the specific information that you require:

• (i) Which companies where given PERF support (ii) how much did they receive and (iii) on what basis were the grants given - ie. (iii-a) what evidence of being financially viable and (iii-b) on what basis deemed to be "pivotal" to Scotland? (iv) what city are they located in.
• (i) Which companies were given grant support from SE last year and this year? (ii) what type of grant was it and (iii) what was the basis it was given - i.e. the financial reason and/or the innovation and R&D reasons - The grants I would like information on are R&D grants, smart grants, small R&D grants, innovation support grants. (iv) what date was the grant awarded?
• I am interested in particular seeing which grants were provided to firms with ties to military uses - Could you add a table into your spreadsheet with these firms marked?
• Finally, I would like the data to be provided in a spreadsheet format, so that I can sort the data and present it to other interested parties.

Given this knowledge, we surmise that providing a response to your initial request ‘who you’ve given money to in the past 12 months’, would not provide the information that you require, as the response would only generate a list of business names. Given that you have now submitted a request for additional information over a different timeframe (01/01/19 – 29/07/20), we are treating your email of the 29th of July as a new request. We will endeavour to provide a response for you as quickly as possible.

With regards to the second part of your initial request, ‘Can I see your list of companies that you have allocated the Pivotal funding to?’ our response is provided to you now:

As you may know, Scottish Enterprise was responsible for managing two grant funding schemes on behalf of the Scottish Government – The Creative, Tourism and Hospitality Enterprises Hardship Fund (CTHEHF) and the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund (PERF).

We shared this responsibility with other Economic Development Agencies, such as Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), and were given the task of assessing applications submitted by applicants from our geographical areas. A plan is in place to release a full list of awards shortly after the fund process is completed, comprising of lists published on each Economic Development Agency’s corporate website. At present, the fund process is still ongoing, but is expected to conclude shortly.

As it is our intention to make the information you have requested publicly available, it is exempt under FOISA, in accordance with section 27 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002: information intended for future publication.

Section 27(1) exempts information from disclosure if an authority plans to publish the information no later than 12 weeks after the date the request is made. While we are unable to provide you with a specific date for publication in this response, we can assure you that our website will be updated as soon as possible with information that relates to our geographical area; and within the 12 week period.

Section 27(1) information held with a view to publication

The exemption in section 27(1) allows public authorities to refuse to disclose information if they already plan to publish it within the next 12 weeks – provided it is reasonable to delay disclosing the information until the planned date of publication.

The public interest test

If the exemption is applied, authorities must go on to consider the public interest in relation to the information. This means assessing whether, in all the circumstances of the case, the public interest is better served by disclosing or withholding the information. We recognise that there is public interest in authorities applying decision-making processes in a manner that is as open and transparent as possible. We also recognise that publishing information such as funding decisions can enhance accountability and allow for scrutiny. It is for this reason that Scottish Enterprise seeks to proactively publish information on grant funding.

As the fund processes for PERF and CTHEHF are due to conclude shortly, we consider that disclosing partial information before the full data set is available could present a misleading picture. We also wish to be fair to those companies whose applications are currently ongoing, either awaiting decisions on their applications or appeals.In balance therefore, we are of the view that it is in the public interest to apply section 27(1) to this request and uphold our decision to release complete funds data on our website once all funds processes have been completed.

We wish to assure you that the decision to publish complete funds data preceded the date on which we received your request for information.