Information pertaining to Sea Fishery Funds: EIR release

Information requested

1. Our original information request asked for a breakdown of funding disbursed to the different categories of vessel by gear type and length. Will Scottish Goverment be making that breakdown public? If not, I would like to submit that as an information request as per original email.

2. On related topic, will the Scottish Government publish similar information about the recipients (sums and business names) of the Seafood Producers Resilience Fund https://www.gov.scot/publications/seafood-producers-resilience-fund/ and the Scottish Seafood Business Resilience Fund https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-seafood-businessresilience-fund-application-form/ If so, when? If not, I would like to submit a detailed information request and would wrap that into the request relating to the hardship fund. 

Response

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.

With regards to the first question you have asked, please see attachement named “SFIF Output.” This gives the breakdown of funding granted to vessels under the Sea Fisheries Intervention Fund, detailing both vessel length and gear type. Please note that in some cases, we could not provide an exact figure per vessel. This is highlighted by an asterisk and occurs where the owner owns multiple vessels. Where multiple ownership occurred, a threshold cap was applied which limited the amount of funding provided.

For the under 12m part of this scheme the payments were capped at £27,000 whilst for the over 12m fleet scheme payments were capped at a maximum of £42,740. As such, an individual vessel may not have received the full entitlement, had it been owned as a single vessel. In these cases asterisks denote the total sum granted for all vessels under the same ownership.

With regards to your second question, please see attachment named “SPRF Vessels Output.” This gives a breakdown of business owners and sum granted for the sea fisheries aspect of the Seafood Producers Resilience Fund. Please note that some payments were made to the agents at the request of the owners
and therefore it is the agent who is listed.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the
Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception.

Some of the information you have requested is now available from https://www.gov.scot/publications/seafood-producers-resilience-fund-beneficiaries.  At this link you will find the breakdown of funding granted for the aquaculture branch of the Seafood Producers Resilience Fund.

You will also find the breakdown of funding granted under the Scottish Seafood Business Resilience Fund.

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.

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.

FOI - 202100223336 - SPRF Vessels Output

File type

18 page PDF

File size

631.4 kB

FOI - 202100223336 - SFIF Output

File type

21 page PDF

File size

854.1 kB