Aggregated catch data from Scottish registered vessels with scallop dredge licences: EIR release

Information requested

Aggregated catch data from Scottish-registered vessels that hold a scallop dredge licence, and >12m, includes tonnes of species landed per scallop stock assessment area. I have delineated the ICES Statistical areas in the attached form.

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.

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested in the attached excel file ‘EIR Scottish scallop vessels in specified English water rectangle groups.xls’.

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 an exception 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.

Some of the vessels fishing in the specified areas are proprietor/owner operated and so there is limited data we can supply without contravening the data protection principles outlined above. Therefore, we have withheld data where less than three vessels are fishing in a specified area and where at least one of these vessels is proprietor/owner operated. This resulted in the data from one area in 2021 being withheld, this is clearly marked in the supplied excel data file. This protects the personal information on the location and fishing information of these owner operated vessels, whilst still providing the majority of the information requested.

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 202500465828 - Information released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

26.8 kB