Publication - FOI/EIR release

Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO) data collected: EIR release

Published: 4 March 2020
Directorate: Marine Directorate
Topic: Marine and fisheries, Public sector
FOI reference: FOI/202000018358
Date received: 4 November 2019
Date responded: 2 March 2020

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004

Information requested

Data referred to in the email dated 12 July 2019, as provided on page 5 of the SG response to FOI 19 02176. This refers to data collected by the Scottish Salmon Producers' Organisation (SSPO) as part of voluntary measures to manage the wild wrasse fishery for salmon farms. You also asked for any information or communications held about the data.

Response

Firstly, I apologise on behalf of the Scottish Government for the very delayed response to your request. This happened because of a breakdown in our processes from another part of the organisation at the receipt stage of this request. We will be examining this area moving forward to identify the issue and provide a remedy.

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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information (the SSPO data) you have requested. Therefore we are refusing part of your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.
However, the data that you have requested are published and are available the following links -
Summarised - https://www.scottishsalmon.co.uk/news/sustainability/sspo-announces-voluntary-publication-of-wrasse-data and full data set http://scottishsalmon.co.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2019/12/Data.pdf.

Please also find enclosed letters held by the Scottish Government about these data. You will note that some information (the names of individuals) has been redacted from that supplied. This is because an exception at regulation 11(2) (personal data) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are set out in the Annex to this letter.

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.