Salmon fishing beats on the River Dee: EIR release

Information requested

Salmon catch records for individual beats on the Aberdeenshire Dee:

"A data frame, spreadsheet or csv file with the each year (ideally the whole record back to 1952 but at a push back to 1980) as a column and each beats proportion of catch in an individual cell for that year's column calculated as follows

"an individual beat MSW + 1SW + (Seat Trout * 0.25) / Total river MSW + 1SW + (Seat Trout * 0.25)

"For each year column I should have the same number of cells as there are beats on the river. I have no need to know the beat name or number, the beats proportional data can be ordered randomly. in each year column. What I need to be able to see is if there is an increase over time in the number of beats catching a lower proportion of fish. This will be easy to see as the half normal distribution that I expect will show a reduced sigma over time and possibly a shift in mu too. Please see how the data I need would look as attached."

Response

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 does not have the information you have requested because we do not collect/hold salmon catch records for individual beats (fisheries) and we do not hold individual catch record data as proportions of the corresponding total annual catch for the river.

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 salmon catches of individual fishing beats on the Dee, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

In considering your options, it may be helpful for you if I were to explain the information that we do hold regarding River Dee salmon fisheries and their catches.

We hold catches as reported to us on catch return forms and a single form may be used to report the catches from more than one fishery (beat or netting station).

We hold paper records of salmon catch returns (forms) from 1952 to 1985, and digital records of salmon catch forms from 1986 to 2024. However,

• A catch form returned to us may include the catches for more than one beat, so long as all the beats being reported on that form are within the Dee Salmon Fishery District (rivers Dee, Cowie, Carron and associated coastline; 1986-2015) or are rod fisheries exclusive to one of the rivers (2016-2024). In practice, no one reported catches for the Dee and/or Cowie or Carron on the same form, although some contacts may have historically used the same form to report both rod (river) and net (coastal/estuarine) catches. Up to seven River Dee fisheries have been reported for within any given return.
• The number of fisheries on any river is not static through time (as they may be split into smaller sections and sold/let, or neighbouring sections of river may be purchased and amalgamated).
• The specific fisheries for which catches are reported on any given form may change through time (e.g. an angling club may change which beats it leases in different years but still report all its catches under the same form number).
• The numbers of forms provided to fisheries for the Dee has changed through time – in some years increasing due to new owners/occupiers and in some years decreasing due to existing contacts expanding their fishing interests and subsequently reporting those fisheries on a single form with one of the two previously used of forms being retired.
• From 1997-2024, there were 91-100 fisheries (annual mean = 95) in the Dee District and 64-77 return forms (annual mean = 72) issued each year, with the catches from up to seven fisheries being reported on a given form.

In 2024, 35% of forms contained personal data. Under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs, personal data are not generally releasable, although they may be where there is significant public interest in the information.

The data that we may be able to release would be anonymised form-level data (often multiple beats per form) from 1986-2024 (this is approximately 2600 returns). We also hold approximately 2400 older paper forms for the Dee, although it is likely that a request for us to scan (and redact personal data from) those would be “Manifestly Unreasonable”. You would also then need to transcribe the data from the scans into a spreadsheet before you could do your analysis.

As I previously indicated, non-anonymised data may be shared with the Dee District Salmon Fishery Board upon request and Board’s data processor/s would be able to see how catches related to each form, the beats reporting on each form, and how the beats reported on each form has changed through time. The Board would become the data controller and be bound by the GDPR legislation, but they may be willing to undertake (or commission) the analysis on behalf of DSFIA given that, from what I understand in your email, every member of the Board is also a member of the DSFIA. Potentially, the Board may already hold catch records at beat-level, since they also have the legal power to collect fishery information (although, I don’t know if they exercise those powers).

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