Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands fish farming and aquaculture meetings: EIR release

Information requested

“All documents relating to meetings with regards to fish farming/ aquaculture that Ms Gougeon has taken part in since her appointment to this position. This should include, face to face meetings as well as remote or telephone meetings.”

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.

Response to your request

We are happy to enclose some documents relating to some engagements that fall within the scope of your request. These are outlined in the table below. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations 10(4)(a) (information not held), 10(4)(d) (incomplete material), 10(4)(e) (internal communications) & 10(5)(f) (third party interests) of the EIRs apply to that information. The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

Below is a table summarising meetings relating to aquaculture that the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands has taken part in since her appointment, as well as the release decision for associated documents identified in the course of searching for information relating to these meetings. The date range considered for this query was 20 May 2021 to 26 November 2021.

Number	Date	Participants	Release Decision
1	10/06/2021	Salmon Scotland, formerly SSPO	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
2	15/06/2021	Marine Scotland	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
3	17/06/2021	Fisheries Management Scotland	Regulation 10(4)(a) Information Not Held exception
4	13/07/2021	Colonsay Community Development Company, Colonsay Community Council and Mowi	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
5	14/07/2021	Shetland Fisherman's Association, North Atlantic Fisheries College	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
6	24/08/2021	Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
7	09/09/2021	British Trout Association	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
8	29/09/2021	Aquagen	Partial release/Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
9	13/10/2021	Gael Force Group	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
10	25/10/2021	Professor Russell Griggs	Release
11	03/11/2021	Salmon Scotland, formerly SSPO	Partial release/Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
12	16/11/2021	Coastal Communities Network	Regulation 10(4)(d) Incomplete materials/Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception
13	25/11/2021	Organic Sea Harvest	Regulation 10(4)(e) Internal Communications exception/ Regulation 10(5)(f) Third Party Interests exception

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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 - 202100258228 - Information Released - Annex A

File type

2 page PDF

File size

89.2 kB

FOI - 202100258228 - Information Released - Annex B

File type

15 page PDF

File size

1.8 MB