Marine laboratory funding and ballast water testing: EIR release

Information requested

I have been contacted by a constituent who has concerns regarding the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen. My constituent has concerns that the laboratory’s funding has been systematically reduced over a period of time, and that Marine Scotland is not committed to keeping the laboratory open.

I would be grateful for any information you could provide in relation to both the funding of the laboratory and its future.

My constituent is also concerned that the testing of vessel’s ballast water is to cease in Scottish Waters. He is particularly, though not exclusively, concerned about the role, or lack thereof, which Marine Scotland will have in ballast water testing in the new Green Freeports. Again, I would be grateful of any information you could provide my constituent in this regard.

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.

Response

I would be grateful for any information you could provide in relation to both the funding of the laboratory and its future.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are explained below.

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 hold any written information that specifically answers your question above.

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 in relation to both the funding of the Marine Laboratory and its future, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

However, under our regulation 9 duty to provide advice and assistance we would like to provide the following information in response to your question above.

This laboratory is part of the Marine Scotland (MS) Directorate in Scottish Government (SG). It continues to deliver world leading science in support of Ministerial aims and ambitions on climate change, net zero, aquaculture and monitoring of our seas and rivers over a range of observational topics including pollutants. All staff are committed to the continuation of this work, as set out in the Blue Economy Vision which launched in March 2022, and work collaboratively with other partners to provide the evidence base that underpins any political decision making on Scotland’s marine environment, particularly with regard to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

With regard to its budget, the figures below illustrate that Marine Scotland Science (MSS) has actually had an increase in budget over the last five years:

2018-19  Budget	2019-20  Budget	2020-21  Budget	2021-22  Budget	2022-23  Budget
£14,216,325	£13,817,000	£15,000,000	£17,100,000	£17,627,000

In addition, the Laboratory is currently undergoing extensive site works and investment following Storm Arwen in late 2021, which resulted in the loss of one of the building, which housed over 100 offices and 40 labs. Although a challenging situation, following this event Marine Scotland staff have worked tirelessly to move essential functions to remaining lab space, contracting out work to monitoring partners where necessary and have developed plans to reinstate lab space across the site to ensure that our important marine scientific work continues long-term.

My constituent is also concerned that the testing of vessel’s ballast water is to cease in Scottish Waters. He is particularly, though not exclusively, concerned about the role, or lack thereof, which Marine Scotland will have in ballast water testing in the new Green Freeports. Again, I would be grateful of any information you could provide my constituent in this regard.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are explained below.

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 don’t hold any written information regarding the involvement of Marine Scotland in ballast water testing, either in the past or planned for the future, in regards to the Green Freeports.

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 the role, or lack thereof, which Marine Scotland will have in ballast water testing in the new Green Freeports, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

However, under our regulation 9 duty to provide advice and assistance we would like to confirm that the general position in relation to ballast water testing across Scotland will also be applicable to Green Freeports.

Please also find the following links to the publicly available information which may be of interest to you:

The most recent ballast water monitoring that the Marine Lab was actively involved with was published in 2007, which was mostly to do with looking at the efficacy of open water exchange in reducing abundance in tanks:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1568988307000273

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X0800074X

There were also some studies in the late 1990s which were published:

https://www.ices.dk/sites/pub/CM%20Doccuments/1995/O/1995_O10.pdf

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.