Weekly fishing landings and landed value data for Orkney: EIR release

Information requested

A finial question for my enquires in terms of landings: what is the eateries year that you can provide for weekly fishing landings and landed value into every fishing port in Orkney by every specie and is it possible that I have access to for weekly fishing landings and landed value into every fishing port in Orkney by every specie from earliest year to 2024?

Response

The earliest year that we can provide weekly fishing landings by port is 2000. This is the earliest year that we have in our database.

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. Please find two Microsoft Excel spreadsheet attached titled “EIR 202500453669 - Orkney landings by port and week 2024” and “EIR 202500453669 - Orkney landings by port and week 2000 to 2008”.

Most of the information you have requested was supplied in a previous EIR response and is available from the Scottish Government website at Orkney fish landings by port and week: EIR release - gov.scot.

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.

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 anexception under regulation 11(2) (personal information of a third party) of the EIRs applies to that information. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information of a third party) 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.

The vast majority of the vessels landing into Orkney ports are small and sole proprietor/owner operated and so there is limited data we can supply without contravening the data protection principles outlined above. Therefore, we have provided data only where there are three or more vessels landing into each specific port in that week, in order to preserve confidentiality. This protects the personal information on the location and financial information of these owner operated vessels, whilst still providing the majority of the information requested.

Additional information provided out with the EIRs

The 2024 data is early pre-statistics release management information (prior to provisional statistics publication), it may be incomplete and could be subject to substantial changes.

I am also advising you that we considered whether to refuse your request in full as ‘manifestly unreasonable’ under regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs. Essentially, regulation 10(4)(b) is concerned with the effect of a request, or series of requests, on the authority and its staff.

This is the seventh request in a series of related requests and each one has involved considerable staff time and resources in order to prepare the data for release to you. Each time you have followed up your request to add a further parameter, we have had to start from scratch again to prepare the data, and it is imposing a significant burden on the business area. We feel that if you are to continue to pursue data of this nature, that a formal data sharing agreement between ourselves and your University may be a better approach for all involved. If you require further data, we would like to urge you to please contact MarineAnalyticalUnit@gov.scot to discuss further.

The following factors will be relevant to determining whether a request is manifestly unreasonable:

(i) It would impose a significant burden on the public authority.
(ii) It does not have a serious purpose or value.
(iii) It is designed to cause disruption or annoyance to the public authority.
(iv) It has the effect of harassing the public authority.
(v) It would otherwise, in the opinion of a reasonable person, be considered to be manifestly unreasonable or disproportionate.

The decision to reject a request on manifestly unreasonable grounds is one the Scottish Government does not take lightly and very rarely exercises. We recognise and encourage disclosing information as part of an open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, we considered if the servicing of your request, in essence a repetition of previous requests but each time adding more data, would impose a significant burden on the Marine Analytical Unit and Marine Directorate Operations. We considered if complying with it would require a disproportionate amount of time, and the diversion of an unreasonable proportion of our resources away from other statutory and regulatory functions.

On this occasion we have provided a further response in full, as you specified that this would be the last request, but if your requests continue along the same lines, then we may need to look to refuse any future information requests as manifestly unreasonable. We hope you will take the opportunity to engage with us in the near future so we can further discuss your data needs. 

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 202500453669 - Information released - Spreadsheet 1

File type

Excel document

File size

568.5 kB

EIR 202500453669 - Information released - Spreadsheet 2

File type

Excel document

File size

72.6 kB