Scottish Offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) - fisheries management measures: equality impact assessment

Stage 4: Decision making and monitoring

Identifying and establishing any required mitigating action

No positive or negative impacts have been identified for any of the equality groups. The policy is neither directly nor indirectly discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010. As there is no indirect discrimination, no justification under the relevant legislation is required, and therefore no mitigating action will be undertaken.

Describing how Equality Impact analysis has shaped the policy making process

For the majority of sites, fisheries management proposals were developed under the process outlined in the EU Common Fisheries Policy. Stakeholder workshops were held in June 2013, April 2014 and March 2015 to discuss potential fisheries management measures for the offshore SAC and MPA sites. These workshops were attended by fishing industry representatives, environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (eNGOs) and marine scientists. These were then continued under the relevant national legislation following the UKs exit from the EU.

Protected areas were addressed on a site by site basis allowing fishermen to provide evidence to identify any key fishing ground within MPAs. The proposals for each site take into account views expressed at each workshop and aim to balance protection of the marine ecosystem against socio-economic fishing interests.

A full socio-economic impact assessment was then undertaken to establish potential impacts of these measures and the scale of potential impacts. In December 2022 a draft version of this assessment was shared with stakeholders in a pre-consultation workshop, allowing stakeholders to provide feedback on the scope and conclusions. This feedback was addressed prior to public consultation.

Monitoring and Review

The Marine Biodiversity team will periodically review the available data and statistics once measures are in place. The team work closely with Sea Fisheries policy and undertake regular communication with fishing industry representatives. We will use these mechanism to continue to gather evidence and assess any impacts of the proposed policy.

The team will also take this into consideration within the MPA network assessment report to parliament which is produced for each 6 year period, the next report is due in 2030.