Egg Producer Codes: EIR release

Information requested

• A list of UK Egg Producer Codes for all currently-active producers registered with the Scottish Government, as described in section 4.1 of this guidance EMR1---RPID---Explanatory-Leaflet--Egg-Marketing-June-2023.doc (live.com) – specifically the numeric / alpha-numeric Farm ID code.
• If known and sharable, the County Parish Holing Number (CPH), or otherwise Business Reference Number or Land Parcel Identifier (LPID) associated with each Producer Code / Farm ID
• The post code associated with each Producer Code / Farm ID – if the full post code is not sharable, then post code sector (consisting of the outward code and the first digit of the inward code; so for example in the format EH6 6.), or, if even that is not sharable, then just the outward code (e.g. EH6.)
• The region and / or county in which each producer is located. (This is the least important aspect of my request, as assuming postcode data are provided, I could derive this information myself).
• Information relating to the number of birds housed by each premises. I am aware that numbers are registered with the Animal and Plant Health Agency APHA under the compulsory UK Registration Scheme, but that records for Scottish producers are then held by Scottish Government. In England, producers must tell their local Egg Marketing Inspector if they reduce or increase the number of birds they keep; if the same is the case in Scotland then current numbers would be preferable, however if these are not available then numbers at the time of registration would still be helpful. These will preferably be absolute numbers, however, if in the form of categories (e.g. more than 5,000, more than 10,000, etc.), this would also still be useful.

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. 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 to your request

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested in the format you asked for.

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.

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.

FOI 202300390960 - Information Released - Data

File type

Excel document

File size

20.0 kB