Information pertaining to weekly fishing vessel license variation decisions: EIR Review

Information requested

Can you confirm whether or not you take account of General Policy 9b during weekly fishing vessel license variation decisions?
If so, can you please explain how you take account of General Policy 9b during weekly fishing vessel license variation decisions?
Can you please share the outcomes of this consideration during the past three months of these license variation decisions?
Can you provide any guidance or policy documents setting out how fishing license variation decisions are made?
If Section 15(2) of the Marine (Scotland) Act is being invoked when making these decisions can you please share the stated reasons for doing so?
Can you provide a list of the stakeholders who Scottish Government will meet as part of this process?
Can you please accompany this list with the details of the last date when any Marine Scotland official or Scottish Minister had contact with each stakeholder, including face-to-face, online or teleconference meetings?

Response

In accordance with regulation 16(3)(b) of the EIRs, I have also reached a decision on your request.

Unfortunately, your initial email of 2 August 2021, was overlooked and no action was taken on it until your further email of 1 September was received. Reference 202100228341 is an invalid reference number as it was set up in error as a duplicate of request 202100227727 (your request for a meeting with the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Tourism, which was also received on 2 August 2021) and was subsequently withdrawn. We now recognise that you would not have been aware of this and you would have concluded that reference 202100228341 related to this request, which was incorrect. Consequently there was some confusion when you quoted reference number 202100228341 in your email of 1 September as it was not a valid reference and was not related to this case. A further error was made by us as we failed to identify that your email of 1 September was requesting a review of the failure to respond on this case.

Furthermore, there was a delay to responding to your request due to the misunderstanding.

I apologise for the errors made in the handling of this request and for the delays in providing you with a response.

I can now provide our response to your original request. In addition to the responses to your questions below, I understand that as agreed at a recent meeting with Ms Gougeon, a meeting is due to be arranged to discuss your concerns directly with relevant officials.

1. Can you confirm whether or not you take account of General Policy 9b during weekly fishing vessel license variation decisions?

As the vast majority of weekly vessel licensing variations communicate routine adjustments to fisheries and changes to existing licenced activity, such as quota limits, General Policy 9b is not routinely considered during such decisions.

2. If so, can you please explain how you take account of General Policy 9b during weekly fishing vessel license variation decisions?

As noted above, weekly licence variations overwhelmingly communicate routine adjustments to existing fisheries and are primarily changes to existing licensed activity in terms of availability of quota species.

Whilst a licence variation can be introduced as an interim measure where a gap in legislative cover is identified, instances of such measures are relatively rare. Rather, licence variations are usually issued to meet specific operational needs for the general management of the domestic fishing fleet on an as and when needed basis. As a result, General Policy 9b is not routinely considered during weekly fishing vessel licensing decisions.

You may however find it helpful to note that we consider the provisions within National Marine Plan General Policy 9 and Section 15 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 when developing appropriate legislation. When a policy unit is considering introducing a legislative instrument a full impact assessment is carried out and appropriate consideration of Marine Scotland policies takes place. As stated in my previous reply, protection measures aimed at conserving Priority Marine Features are best delivered through statutory instruments as they then apply to all UK and foreign fishing vessels alike whilst operating in Scottish waters, not just Scottish license holders. These instruments are designed to be fully comprehensive in delivering policy objectives and are therefore much more effective than a limited licence condition. We consider the provisions within National Marine Plan General Policy 9 and Section 15 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 when developing such legislation.

3. Can you please share the outcomes of this consideration during the past three months of these license variation decisions?

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.

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 no new licences were issued in the last 3 months.

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 how the Scottish Government takes account of the National Marine Plan General Policy 9b in fishing vessel licensing decisions, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

4. Can you provide any guidance or policy documents setting out how fishing license variation decisions are made?

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.

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.

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 how the Scottish Government takes account of the National Marine Plan in fishing vessel licensing decisions, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

5. If Section 15(2) of the Marine (Scotland) Act is being invoked when making these decisions can you please share the stated reasons for doing so?

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.

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.

You may find helpful to know that we consider the provisions within National Marine Plan General Policy 9 and Section 15 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 when developing appropriate legislation. When a policy unit is considering introducing a legislative instrument a full impact assessment is carried out and appropriate consideration of Marine Scotland policies takes place.

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 how the Scottish Government takes account of Section 15 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 in fishing vessel licensing decisions, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

6. Can you provide a list of the stakeholders who Scottish Government will meet as part of this process?

As part of the process for establishing fisheries management measures for inshore MPAs and PMFs outside MPAs, we met with a number of stakeholders prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Stakeholders we met as part of this process were;

• Coastal Communities Network (CCN)
• Community Inshore Fisheries Association (CIFA)
• Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST)
• North and East Coast Regional Inshore Fisheries Group
• Flora and Fauna International
• Open Seas
• Orkney Fisheries Association
• Outer Hebrides Regional Inshore Fisheries Group
• Scottish Environment Link
• Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF)
• Scottish Whitefish Producers’ Association (SWFPA)
• Sea Change Wester Ross
• Seafish
• Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation
• West Coast Regional Inshore Fisheries Group

One aim of these meetings was to meet with individuals affected by the proposals including local fishers, through their relevant Regional Inshore Fisheries Group (RIFG). We met with the Outer Hebrides RIFG members in Stornoway and Benbecula; the West Coast RIFG members in Ullapool, Mallaig, Tarbert and Oban; the North and East Coast RIFG members in Aberdeen; and also met with fishers in Orkney and Shetland. Unfortunately we were unable to complete these in person meetings due to Covid-19 so will be rescheduling the outstanding meetings in Troon, Dundee and Inverness shortly.

7. Can you please accompany this list with the details of the last date when any Marine Scotland official or Scottish Minister had contact with each stakeholder, including face-to-face, online or teleconference meetings?

The table below lists the most recent meeting (prior to 2 August 2021) with each of the stakeholder groups, whether this meeting was with Marine Scotland officials or Ministers and the format of these meetings. This includes meetings on all topics, not exclusively on the PMF/MPA.  
 

Stakeholder Group	Date of meeting	Meeting format
Coastal Communities Network (CCN)	3rd March 2020	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Community Inshore Fisheries Association (CIFA)	2nd August 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST)	21st July 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
East Coast Regional Inshore Fisheries Group	26th May 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Flora and Fauna International	6th September 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Open Seas	11th September 2020	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Orkney Fisheries Association	9th June 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Outer Hebrides Regional Inshore Fisheries Group	26th April 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Scottish Environment Link	25th June 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF)	29th July 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Scottish Whitefish Producers’ Association (SWFPA)	15th July 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Sea Change Wester Ross	19th February 2020	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Seafish	20th July 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation	5th July 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual
West Coast Regional Inshore Fisheries Group	22nd July 2021	Marine Scotland, Virtual

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, however we are unable to provide details of the individuals attending these meetings because an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to names of individual attendees of these meetings 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 2016 and 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.

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