Fish welfare and mortality documentation for specific salmon farm site: EIR release

Information requested

You referred to an individual salmon farm site, BDNC, and quoted reference to some specific published information, asking for:

All document(s) and correspondence between FHI, other departments of the Marine Directive and APHA, about fish welfare and mortality in this farm.

Did FHI or other departments of the Marine Directive refer the farm to APHA?

You then expanded your request the following day, 16 July 2024 to include the following:

Full details of all the cases of salmon farm mortality or fish health and welfare issues on salmon farms that FHI has referred to APHA since 2018.

Full details of all occasions since 2018 when APHA inspectors accompanied FHI to inspect salmon farms.

All correspondence between FHI and any other part of the Marine Directive or Scottish Government, and APHA, that concerns these inspections, or that in any other way concerns fish welfare, health and mortality on these farms.

Your request then went on to cover communications with Local Authorities and included:

Full details, with dates, of all occasions when FHI or any other part of the Marine Directive or Scottish Government, told Local Authorities that they did or did not need to act on information about fish health, welfare or mortality in salmon farms, that had been sent to them by APHA or by members of the public.

For each such occasion, please disclose all relevant documents and correspondence.

If there are such occasions, what action did FHI or other parts of the Scottish Government take to prevent unnecessary suffering of farmed fish, both during the welfare or mortality event that was investigated and in future?

Has the Scottish Government provided Local Authorities with guidance on when they should and should not investigate welfare, health or mortality issues on salmon farms, and when they should or should not take action under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006?

If it has, please disclose this guidance.

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.

We have provided copies of information relating to communications between the Scottish Government (including the Marine Directorate and the Fish Health Inspectorate) and the Animal Plant Health Agency, and where appropriate local authorities, where these relate to the subject area of your request – inspections associated with FHI and APHA and fish welfare, health and mortality on these farms. In addition, other communications are provided including third party complaints and internal discussions concerning the same.

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 available from the Scottish Government website, specifically FHI case information relating to inspections undertaken in conjunction with APHA -
https://www.gov.scot/collections/publication-of-fish-health-inspectorate-information/.

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. It may be useful for you to note that the case numbers provided in Annex 1 of this response represent cases which would have been conducted in conjunction with APHA or local authorities, although this is not necessarily a comprehensive list.

You may also find some relevant information through responses to previous information requests which are published on the Scottish Government website. It may be beneficial to try using the search criteria ‘APHA’, ‘fish welfare’, ‘fish mortalities’ and ‘fish health’ when searching within the publication type ‘FOI/EIR release’ on the web site: https://www.gov.scot/publications/

Information not held

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

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 has not provided Local Authorities with guidance on when they should and should not investigate welfare, health or mortality issues on salmon farms, and when they should or should not take action under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, therefore no information is held with respect to this part of your request.

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 guidance to the local authorities on the subject areas relating to your request, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Specific information relating to BDNC

With respect to your specific query regarding BDNC, it is our understanding that knowledge of the incident to which you refer would have been passed on to APHA. However, other than the specific comment on the FHI case sheet, we can find no record of this individual case being passed on. The communications released indicate the same.

I would like to reiterate that the Animal and Plant Health Agency are responsible for animal welfare, and that this is an area where the Scottish Government’s Fish Health Inspectorate have no regulatory responsibility. As is evident from the information provided to you, we share information and knowledge with APHA in situations where potential welfare concerns and complaints arise. Furthermore, where required, we support APHA in the role that they fulfil, particularly with respect to sharing knowledge associated with the aquaculture industry and supporting site inspections.

Annex 1 – Relevant case information

20190271 - FS0594 Aird
20230216 - FS1336 Applecross Hatchery
20180429 - FS1091 Vacasay
20190097 - FS0062 Duartmore Hatchery
20190098 - FS0065 Loch Laxford
20210132 - FS0253 Loch Spelve (B)
20190300 - FS1033 North Shore
20190376 - FS0805 Bagh Dail Nan Cean
20200486 - FS0426 Loch Creran (B)
20240058 - FS1360 Applecross Smolt Ongrowing 1
20240059 - FS0500 Applecross Smolt Unit
20190183 - FS1269 Lochailort Recirculation Hatchery
20190303 - FS1315 Maaey
20190304 - FS1304 Maragay Mor
20190305 - FS1255 Uiskevagh
20180292 - FS0253 Loch Spelve (B)
20180341 - FS0209 Scallastle
20190331 - FS0594 Aird
20190391 - FS1286 Muck
20210258 - FS1342 West Strome
20200392 - FS0468 Loch Tralaig
20210553 - FS0752 Taranaish
20220262 - FS1047 Loch Creran (D)
20240107 - FS0264 Inverpolly

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202400422642 - Information Released - Attachments

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