Scallop dredging, fishing intensity and inshore fishing: EIR release

Information requested

Additional fisheries data to help better inform our understanding of the baseline fishing effort

• We would be especially interested in anonymised VMS data showing recent levels of fishing intensity for the various gear types, but of particular importance to us would be data on scallop dredging intensity.
• Is there a form of anonymised REM data for scallop vessels that could be shared?
• The assessment of inshore less than 12 m vessels is particularly difficult due to the lack of publicly available data on this section of the fishing industry. As a result, we are using ScotMap data which now 12 years old. Is Marine Scotland aware of additional sources of information on this section of the fishing industry?

Clarification on the extent of the temporal and spatial ranges you are looking for data from) in order for us to identify and locate the information you asked for.

• Is this ICES data is considered an accurate representation of fishing effort by over 12 m vessels (VMS tracked vessels)? For example, if there is not an ICES csquare over a specific area (and therefore no fishing activity data; fishing hours, weight, value etc) is it appropriate to infer that no fishing activity of over 12 m vessels is taking place? Or at least that very limit activity takes place in that specific area?
• As a result of already reviewing the ICES data, please could you provide additional information for the temporal period 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2022? Please can the data cover the spatial extent contained within the following boundary co-ordinates (WGS-84 Decimal Degrees Reference System):

57.495165 , -7.0373974;

57.364343 , -7.0988330;

57.346731 , -7.2054506;

57.386301 , -7.3425493;

57.514333 , -7.2166924.

• Regarding the third and final point of the data request, relating to the fishing activity of under 12 m vessels (not covered by VMS), what data sources would you recommend?

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.

On ICES data, under our regulation 9 duty to provide advice and assistance please find our response below.

ICES annually publish gridded data depicting bottom-contact mobile gears on behalf of OSPAR. This data is processed using a standardised methodology, and aggregated at a scale to protect personal data and commercial sensitivity. It includes data from vessels with an overall length of 12m or greater submitted by most European countries.

For the ICES dataset, if a c-square is absent, no VMS data was received for the gear type. Note that this data does not include static or pelagic fishing gears. It is more difficult to interpret static gear activity from VMS (which tracks the vessel, not deployed gear).

Other fisheries datasets derived from VMS and AIS are available for download, for example:

• Marine Management Organisation (MMO) – Fishing activity by UK over 15m vessels for 2007 to 2020
• EMODnet Human Activities - Fisheries layers
• EMODnet Human Activities – Vessel Density – Fishing layers

Regarding the period 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2022, we enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

Annex 1

This includes anonymised VMS data for UK vessels linked to gear for years 2017 to 2020 for c-squares intersecting the area of request. Where less than 5 vessels are in a c-square, the values are redacted.

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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of 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 the data for 2021 and 2022 have not yet been processed.

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 the data for 2021 and 2022, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Annex 2

This includes anonymous VMS data for all nationalities for 2017-2022, as it is not linked to logbooks, so has no gear information. The tool extracts data at ICES rectangle level, so I’ve included 44E2 and 44E2. Where there are less than 5 vessels in an ICES rectangle, the positions are redacted.

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.

Regarding the third and final point of the data request, an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to the current raw data held by Marine Scotland 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.

However, under our regulation 9 duty to provide advice and assistance, we would like to advise you that work is in progress for mapping Fish1s and Paper Logbooks from under-12m vessels. As yet there is no set date for publication, but we hope to publish by the end of quarter 2 this year. The Scottish Government is committed to extending the vessel tracking requirement to the under 12 metre fleet in this parliamentary session. At this time the only dataset currently published is ScotMap.

Regarding VMS data, we emailed you on 15 February 2023 to signpost you to the Marine Scotland Information website where there is some published data you may be interested in:

Average intensity (hours) of fishing using ICES VMS data sets | Marine Scotland Information

Regarding REM data, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of 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 data of the type you have requested does not exist. Whilst raw data is held for some of the scallop dredge fleet, it is not currently available in aggregate and anonymous form.

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 this type of data, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to the current raw data held by Marine Scotland 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.

However, under our regulation 9 duty to provide advice and assistance, we are providing you with some further information on this topic which may be of interest.

The Scottish Government's Fisheries Management Strategy commits to rolling out REM to key parts of the fishing fleet, and prioritises making REM (including Global Positioning Systems (“GPS”), sensors and cameras) mandatory on scallop dredge vessels and pelagic vessels.

The analysis and response to the public consultation will be published soon (Marine resources - ensuring long term sustainability: remote electronic monitoring (REM) consultation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)).

The Scottish Government anticipates laying the requirement in parliament this year to make REM a mandatory requirement for all scallop dredge vessels and pelagic vessels fishing in Scottish waters.

For scallop dredge vessels, the mandatory element builds on a successful voluntary introduction, which has seen the vast majority of the active fleet installed with a REM system.

Therefore, although we do not have any data layers available for the scallop REM at time of writing, we would like to advise you that work is in progress on this and we intend to generate at least intensity (hours) of fishing data layers from REM data later this year in Q2/Q3.

Regarding inshore less than 12 m vessels, an exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to the current raw data held by Marine Scotland 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.

Scottish fishing vessels with an overall length of 12m or less submit either Fish1 forms or paper logbooks. These returns require fishers to provide a single latitude and longitude position per day to indicate where the majority of fishing took place.

This information is currently being aggregated for publication as experimental spatial data. The Scottish Government is committed to extending the vessel tracking requirement to the under 12 metre fleet in this parliamentary session.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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.