Fishing - Quota Management Group (QMG) trial: evaluation

10. Annex A: Methodology

This project aimed to evaluate the Quota Management Groups (QMGs) trial. The project was carried out by in-house analysts of the Marine Analytical Unit (MAU) division of the Marine Directorate. The project was managed by a Project Advisory Group comprised of representatives from the fisheries policy division, Marine Management Organisation, and MAU analysts. The project advisory group provided quality assurance and sense checked the outputs. Members of the Project Advisory Group did not have access to any personal or raw primary data collected through the project. A three-stage methodology was developed to explore whether the trial had met its goals.

Stage 1: Desk-based research that included a literature review (academic and grey literature) and a review of fisheries management data.

Stage 2: Interviews with a range of stakeholders in the industry, including QMG and PO representatives, fishers, selling fishing agents, and other stakeholders operating in the commercial fisheries sector. Overall, 15 interviews were conducted for this research.

Stage 3: Reporting, including recommendations resulting from this evaluation.

10.1. Desk-based research

The desk-based research for this project consisted of two parts, a literature review and a review of fisheries management data.

A literature review looked at publications related to the management of quota by sectoral groups. It included a review of published academic papers, government policy, and other grey literature. Google and Google scholar search engines were used for the review. Search terms “fish producer organisations”, “fish quota allocation”, as well as variations of these terms were used when searching for literature. With regards to dates, the search was limited to papers published from 2010 onwards. It did not have a specific geographic scope. The majority of papers identified through the search were government documents explaining processes or focusing on policies related to sector management. Several papers dealing directly with how the sectoral groups manage quota were found. These papers mostly addressed the fixed quota allocation units, the sectoral groups were mentioned as important stakeholders in the system but were not the main focus of the research. Overall, the literature search revealed a lack of publications focused on how sectoral groups manage quota.

The second part of the desk-based review focused on reviewing fisheries management data in the reports that are submitted by the Scottish POs and QMGs to the Scottish Government on an annual basis. The annual reports were reviewed to understand whether sectoral groups administer the quota in line with Scottish Government objectives. The review looked at the information provided by the sectoral groups in their annual reports and compared this to the Scottish Government objectives. It also looked at the quality of data provided by the sectoral groups and compared the quality of data between POs and QMGs. Mandatory and elective objectives were compared. With regards to time, three years (2020-2022 inclusive) of the reports were reviewed. The 2023 reports were still being approved at time of writing, and so were not included into this project. These reports contain a lot of sensitive commercial information, and therefore are not currently published.

10.2. Interviews

Primary data collection for the project consisted of a mixture of face-to-face and online interviews with a range of stakeholders in the industry, including: QMG and PO representatives, fishers, selling fishing agents, and other stakeholders operating in the commercial fisheries sector. Overall, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted for this project. Interviews were conducted in April and May 2024. In line with the Magenta Book guidance, these interviews aimed to explore the range of views and build in-depth insights on the topic.

Interview recruitment targeted PO and QMG representatives as stakeholders directly working in quota management, these stakeholders comprised the majority of interview participants. Participants were recruited through the existing contacts in the industry.

Data Protection Impact Assessment and Scottish Government Social Research Ethics Assessment were completed ahead of the project. The project involved a relatively small number of people working in the same sector. It was important to take these sensitivities into account and the research team considered ethics at every step of the project (e.g. while creating the interview guide, contacting stakeholders after interviews to verify interview quotes and seek permission to use quotes in the report, when analysing and reporting data).

Ahead of the interviews, participants were sent an email explaining the project in lay terms and outlining the broad interview themes. The email also included a privacy notice explaining how their personal data will be handled by the project team. Written or verbal consent was sought from participants. Permission was sought to audio record interviews. During online interviews, Teams meeting transcript was used. Interviews conducted in-person were recorded by a dictaphone. Interviewers took notes during the interviews and used both interview transcripts and notes for the analysis. Interview guide used for this project is presented below.

Interview guide

• In what ways, if at all, has the sector changed since the introduction of QMGs?
• How suitable/functional are QMGs for managing quota in comparison to POs?
• What do you think about the requirements placed on POs and QMGs (rules for creating and managing the organisation)? What works well and what needs to change?
• What do you think about the objectives of POs and QMGs (sustainability, quota utilisation, economic return)? What works well and what needs to change?
• From your experience are there any barriers and opportunities in trading quota between POs and QMGs? If so, what are they?
• If you are a PO/QMG are you looking for new members and what are your requirements?
• From your experience, what services are fishers looking for in POs/QMGs?
• From your point of view, what are the incentives and barriers if fishers want to change/joining a PO/QMG?
• If you are a fishing vessel owner/agent, what do you think in terms of the value for money of the services your PO/QMG provides?
• If you are a fishing vessel owner/agent who is not a member of a PO/QMG what are your reasons for being unaffiliated?
• For this project we interview POs, QMGs, fishers and other organisations working in this sector. What kind of challenges does your organisation/company face with regards to quota management?
• What works well in your organisation/company with regards to quota management that you would not want to change?
• Overall, what do you think about how the whole system of quota management works at the moment? What works well and what needs to be changed?
• Do you think QMGs should be used in the future for quota management? Would you like to add anything else about quota management?

Interview transcripts were analysed using ‘grounded theory’ (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) that is a qualitative research method frequently used in social sciences. This method allowed the research team to inductively derive the main interview themes on quota management by using a systematic set of procedures. This involved a close line-by-line reading of the transcripts while labelling the text with the emerging themes. NVivo software was used for analysing data. As more refined themes emerged, a cycle of labelling was carried out again. This process involved iterative comparison between data and the emerging analysis to gradually build a detailed interview analysis.

10.3. Reporting and recommendations

The final stage of this project involved bringing together literature review findings, summaries of annual reports and interview analysis. The findings are presented in the report. Using different sources of data helped to triangulate the research findings. Evidence produced by the project formed the basis of the recommendations with regards to the QMG trial and the potential next steps outlined in this report.

How to access background or source data

The data collected for this social research publication:

☐ are available in more detail through Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics

☐ are available via an alternative route

☒ may be made available on request, subject to consideration of legal and ethical factors. Please contact MarineAnalyticalUnit@gov.scot for further information.

☐ cannot be made available by Scottish Government for further analysis as Scottish Government is not the data controller.