Scottish razor clam electrofishing trial communications: EIR release

Information requested

All communications between Marine Scotland and the Scottish Razor Clam Association since the commencement of the trial, to include all communications to group members.

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.

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested as an attachment.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information you 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 some of the information you requested under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. Under the terms of this exception, 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 Scottish Government does not hold a list of group members associated with the Scottish Razor Clam Association. Therefore we cannot provide you with information to “include all communications to group members”.

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 communications between Marine Scotland and the Scottish Razor Clam Association and communications to all group members since the commencement of the trial, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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.

202300353503 - Email 39

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21 page PDF

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5.9 MB

202300353503 Email 52

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2 page PDF

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147.9 kB

EIR release - 202300353503

File type

100 page PDF

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1.5 MB