SPSO Individual Decisions

Mr C complained that Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) unreasonably stated that they had an interest in an area of amenity land they were considering selling when, in his opinion, this was not the case. He was of the view that they claimed this in order to put the land on the open market and increase the value. He also felt that HIE unreasonably sold the land to a developer and so failed to protect the future amenity value of the land for the community. We found that there was interest in the land from other parties and, as a result, HIE were correct in what they said. We also noted that the designation of land is a responsibility of the council and not HIE. We found that a decision not to attempt to try and control future use of the land through a no-development clause in the sale agreements was reasonable. As the actions take by HIE were reasonable, and as we found no evidence of administrative failure in the way they dealt with this matter, we did not uphold Mr C's complaint. Related reading View Decision Report 201203653 as a PDF (11.14 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mrs C is a landowner who owns a stretch of river close to a fish farm. She complained that when Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) approved a grant for expansion of the fish farm, they did so without conducting sufficiently robust environmental checks and did not reasonably investigate the probable environmental impact. Our investigation, which included taking independent advice from one of our advisers, found that HIE had used a reasonable scrutiny process and had applied it properly. We did, however, find that some of the information about how the fish farm was complying with the environmental regulations was supplied by the applicants themselves. Our adviser said that, while this complied with the process in place at the time, it would be more robust if such information was obtained from a third party, such as the relevant regulatory body. In this case the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) was the regulatory body involved. The fish farm had provided HIE with copies of licences issued by SEPA and HIE had made some further enquiries to ensure that the licences were current and that SEPA were working with the fish farm to ensure on-going compliance. HIE have since reviewed their procedures and are in the process of issuing revised guidance to staff. The new procedures mean that in future any information on compliance with environmental regulations and requirements will be obtained from the regulatory body rather than the applicant. Overall, we were satisfied that it is not HIE's role to monitor or police compliance. In this case the application documentation was correctly scrutinised, assessed and evaluated, and we also satisfied that in future the system will be even more robust. Related reading View Decision Report 201103656 as a PDF (11.54 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018