Marine Directorate’s aquatic animal health surveillance programme movement records: EIR release

Information requested

You referred to previous requests relating to cleaner fish transfers to fish farms and which covered the time periods of January 2023 to 17 August 2024 (EIR 202400427045) and 2022 (EIR 202400442233).

You have now asked for equivalent data relating to the year 2021, which should include the name of the receiving facility, date, species, number, source and whether the fish were caught or bred. You submitted an initial query, 06 January 2025, exploring the possibility of obtaining the information detailed above for both years 2021 and 2020. We have been able to handle this request to include the data for both 2021 and 2020.

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.

Please find attached a copy of extracted information from the movement records collected through the Marine Directorate’s aquatic animal health surveillance programme, relevant to the years 2021 and 2020.

Please note that this is not a comprehensive record of movement data as the information provided only relates to aquaculture sites visited within, or subsequent to, the time period of your request. The data will only go up to the date of the last inspection, this information is included within the spreadsheet which is provided to you.

It is not always possible to tell from the information held the exact source of the cleaner fish, or indeed whether these relate to wild or farmed animals. In some situations, we have annotated the spreadsheet to include instances of suspected wild caught fish.

Exceptions apply

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. This specifically applies to names of individuals involved in the capture of wild wrasse species.

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. This is detailed above, with reference to the data not being a comprehensive record, and in some situations, information relating to specific sources of cleaner fish. Therefore, we are refusing these aspects of your request, where they apply, 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. 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 cleaner fish movement data and the specific areas referred to above, 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 https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202500448887 - Information released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

78.6 kB