Science Evidence Data and Digital Portfolio Annual Report 2024 - 2025

Operations (OPS)

Headlines

• Ships and Logistics team successfully managed the survey vessel programmes to optimise the survey time available and minimise the impact of downtime caused by equipment failure.
• Net rigging team sustained the demand from the vessel survey programmes under arduous and sub-optimal conditions to ensure nets were available for stock allocation surveys.
• Completion of the Health and Safety climate survey with over 130 responses from within SEDD provided a benchmark to prioritise improvements over the coming years. Over 186 SEDD colleagues attended 36 different H&S training courses.
• Colleagues in the Marine and Freshwater laboratories across the MD estate received positive reports from UKAS (the National Accreditation Body for the UK) who are appointed by government, to assess and accredit organisations that provide services including certification, testing, inspection, calibration, validation and verification.
• Commenced the drafting of a Strategic Outline Case for the redevelopment of the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen, following the loss of infrastructure, to ensure we continue to have buildings and facilities that can deliver our scientific evidence and data output and support.

Key Work in 2024 - 25

1. Logistical and Engineering support Contributes to:

Ensuring the research vessels have an annual programme of work that is supported with survey equipment to enable the collection of samples and data. Logistical support including the management of laboratory special waste, storage and circulation of chemicals and managing general deliveries and the Altens storage facility.

2. Business and site management, workforce management, quality, H&S and training at Marine Lab, Aberdeen.

Contributes to:

H&S advice and quality management auditing and training support to ensure accredited methods are operating in accordance with UKAS standards. Providing business management support for SEDD on finance, certificate of assurance, business continuity, workforce etc. Providing business support for SEDD infrastructure management to deliver short, medium, and long-term solutions for the ongoing SEDD estate site issues. Provide support for making complex information/data more easily accessible for public consumption.

3. Delivery of support for staff Contributes to:

FOI/EIR/MiCase responses, drafting external funding, lecturing, supervising students, volunteering, trade union representation etc.

Case Study: The Net Rigging Team

The loss of a key building placed additional delivery pressures on the net rigging and renewables teams that were accommodated through short term solutions implemented across the Marine Laboratory site. The absence of alternative fit for purpose facilities

to ensure the continued maintenance and repairs to fishing nets has required the re- prioritisation of the work conducted in the mechanical workshop to incorporate the net rigging team.

The fabrication area within the Mechanical workshop that commenced in June 2024 provides a useable space that allows the net riggers to continue their invaluable role in maintaining the nets required to service the survey vessel programmes. Over the course of 2024/25 the net riggers overcame the backlog of nets that built up after the closure of building K and continued to maintain and repair nets as they were returned from each of the annual surveys.

To achieve this, the team has had to adapt to their new work environment, developing solutions for the shortfalls encountered in the mechanical workshop. The primary issue is the insufficient space to lift significant sections of the net off the floor, allowing the net riggers easy access to the net and providing an overview of the net damage. This has resulted in the increased manual handling of the net for an operation that was already physically demanding. However, the net riggers have taken a stoic approach and have addressed the work at hand. The support provided by the team has ensured that since January 2024 the following nets have been serviced (see table below):

Since January 2024, twenty nets have been serviced meeting the objectives of the vessel survey programmes for MRV Scotia and MRV Alba Na Mara. In turn, this has enabled the completion of all statutory stock assessment surveys that rely on the output from the net rigging team, to collect data that underpins the commercial fishing quota allocation. The effort by the net rigging team has ensured that potential economic consequences to Scottish fishers has been avoided.