Investigation into high level pressures on wild salmon: EIR release

Information requested

At the end of 2018, the Scottish Government published a list of High Level Pressures on wild salmon. This request is for information as to how much investigation of each pressure has occurred since the list was published. The information requested for the time spent by Marine Scotland Science researching each of the pressures and whether this research involved a specific project in which case, how much funding did each/any project receive.

Finally, the request includes details of any report or published paper for each pressure.

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.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because Marine Scotland do not record the information that you have requested in a way that relates directly to the groups of high level pressures on wild salmon as per the list that you refer to. While it is likely that some relevant information will be held, in order to ascertain whether we hold even some of the information requested for any one of the groups of high level pressures listed we would need to examine a significant number of documents, as well as endeavouring to map staff time for a large number of officials against each pressure.

I should explain that research within Marine Scotland Science (MSS) is organised by broad programmes of work, and some work by project within these broad programmes. Staff resources may be allocated to a number of projects or areas of work at any given time. In addition, we hold some information relating to discrete projects including the title, budget and project leader, but this information does not cover all work undertaken by MSS. Such information would not, therefore, provide a comprehensive assessment of staff time and resources attributed to each pressure on the list as per your request. In addition, it is important to note that a significant amount of research work is carried out
in collaboration with partners such as universities and stakeholder organisations including district salmon fishery boards and river trusts, and NGOs. This means that in many cases the administration of a project, including the allocation of staff resources, is a matter for the research partner and information is not held by the Scottish Government.

On the second part of your request, Marine Scotland publishes research in a variety of places and formats. Details of these publications may be found on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/collections/marine-publications/. Marine Scotland do not record information that links these publications to the high level pressures list you have referred to in your request.

The Office of the Scottish information Commissioner (OSIC) guidance (available to download at https://www.itspublicknowledge.info/Law/FOISAEIRsGuidance/EIRsexceptionbriefings/Regulation10(4)(a)Informationnotheld.aspx) (para 49) states:
“Public authorities are not required to create information in order to answer a request. There’s a distinction between creating new information, and compiling information. Where a request can be answered by compiling information from readily-available resources held by the public authority, this is not the same as creating new information. However, if compiling information in order to respond to a request would require skill and complex judgement, it is less likely that the information can be said to be held for the purposes of the EIRs.”

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The information you have requested cannot be compiled from readily available resources and we consider that to compile the information requested would require skill and complex judgement. We therefore do not consider the information you have requested to be held for the purposes of the EIRs for the reasons set out above.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about about research undertaken by Marine Scotland Science, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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.