Inspections carried out by the Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) at Mowi's Farms: EIR release

Information requested

You requested the following information:

(a) The total number of inspections carried out by FHI at Mowi's Farms during the period 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2021.

(b) In relation to each (a) inspection, the mode of the inspection at each farm (ex. in person, by phone, on papers only, etc).

(c) The total number of inspections carried out by FHI at Mowi's Farms during the period 1 January 2022 to 12 June 2022.

(d) In relation to each (c) inspection, the mode of the inspection at each farm (ex. in person, by phone, on papers only, etc).

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.

Between the period 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021 53 inspections were carried out by the Fish Health Inspectorate at fish farms authorised under the business Mowi Scotland Ltd. Of these inspections 48 involved physical inspections at the farm. All 53 inspections would have involved either telephone, MS Teams or email communications as part of the inspection process.

Between the period 1 January 2022 and 12 June 2022 27 inspections were carried out by the Fish Health Inspectorate at fish farms authorised under the business Mowi Scotland Ltd. Of these inspections 22 involved physical inspections at the farm. All 27 inspections would have involved either telephone, MS Teams or email communications as part of the inspection process.

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.