Mowi, Salmon Scotland and Loch Hourn correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

• All email correspondence (including attachments) to and from your domain and the following domains: "@mowi.com" and "@salmonscotland.co.uk";
• Any other email correspondence (including attachments) to and from your domain regarding Loch Hourn, including internally, with Sepa ("@sepa.org.uk") and representatives of the group Friends of Loch Hourn, such as [REDACTED].
• A list of any meetings (in person or digitally) and or phone calls between Marine Directorate staff and any of the groups mentioned above, including agendas and/or minutes where those were produced.

With the added clarification :

• Given the short time window of the request I would ask that you include all responsive documents for my first and second points (correspondence and attachments), though you may restrict responsive documents for the third point (meetings, phone calls and minutes) just to those which relate to Loch Hourn.

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 as a compilation of email correspondence and meetings converted into PDF.

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 exceptions under regulations 6(1)(b) (information which is already publicly available and easily accessible in another form or format), 10(4) (e) of the EIRs (internal communications), 10(5)(b) of the EIRs (substantial prejudice to course of justice) and 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

ANNEX

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

An exception applies

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.

Some emails contain mortality information which is submitted to the Marine Directorate’s Fish Health Inspectorate as part of a voluntary agreement with aquaculture stakeholders when mortality exceeds specified thresholds. This information is subject to a proactive publication plan, with publication occurring on a monthly basis one month in arrears. Information up until the end of May 2025 has been published. You can access mortality information and further details relating to it, through the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fish-health-inspectorate-mortality-information/

Some information relating to Scotland’s aquatic animal health surveillance programme is relevant to your request, and specifically a site inspection at the fish farm site Creag an T'Sagairt (Loch Hourn) (FS0605) (case number 20250126) and was circulated internally via email. This information is also subject to proactive publication as detailed above, and is available on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/collections/publication-of-fish-health-inspectorate-information/. You can source the information by searching for the specific case number - 20250126.

An exception applies

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) applies to some of the information you have requested because it is internal communication informing Scottish Ministers about a live investigation.

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. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, there is a greater public interest in allowing a private space within which officials can provide free and frank advice and views to Ministers in briefing. It is clearly in the public interest that Ministers can properly provide sound information to Parliament (to which they are accountable). They need full and candid advice from officials to enable them to do so. Premature disclosure of this type of information could lead to a reduction in the comprehensiveness and frankness of such advice and views in the future, which would not be in the public interest.

An exception applies

An exception under regulation 10(5)(b) of the EIRs (substantial prejudice to course of justice) applies to some of the information you have requested because it relates to a potential criminal investigation.

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. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, this is outweighed by the strong public interest in maintaining the right to confidentiality of communications in relation to gathering evidence and information to support a potential future criminal prosecution.

An exception applies

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.

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 202500467787 - Information released - Annex

File type

PDF

File size

2.3 MB