Total fishing days in scientific trial periods 2018-22: EIR release

Information requested

• From 1st February 2018 till 31st January 2019, In total how many fishing days where used in the Scientific Trial including all Razor vessels permitted to fish within the Trial?
• From 1st February 2019 till 31st January 2020, In total how many fishing days where used in the Scientific Trial including all Razor vessels permitted to fish within the Trial?
• From 1st February 2020 till 31st January 2021, In total how many fishing days where used in the Scientific Trial including all Razor vessels permitted to fish within the Trial?
• From 1st February 2021 till 31st January 2022, In total how many fishing days where used in the Scientific Trial including all Razor vessels permitted to fish within the Trial?

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

From 1 February 2018 until 31 January 2019, a total of 1641 days at sea were used by authorised vessels in the electrofishing for razor clam trial.

From 1 February 2019 until 31 January 2020, a total of 2067 days at sea were used by authorised vessels in the electrofishing for razor clam trial.

From 1 February 2020 until 31 January 2021, a total of 1432 days at sea were used by authorised vessels in the electrofishing for razor clam trial.

From 1 February 2021 until 31 January 2022, a total of 1982 days at sea were used by authorised razor vessels in the electrofishing for razor clam trial.

The above information answers your EIR request in full, but for your information only we are advising you of the following. It is important to note that the number of days at sea as quoted above are self declared by fishers authorised to participate in the trial. Marine Scotland is using REM data to more accurately refine time spent at sea. This analysis is ongoing and therefore regulation 10 4 (d)- material in the course of completion, unfinished documents and incomplete data applies.

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