Publication - FOI/EIR release

Managing Interactions Aquaculture Project (MIAP) steering group: EIR release

Published: 23 August 2017
Directorate: Marine Directorate
Topic: Marine and fisheries, Public sector

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

FOI reference: FOI/17/01685
Date received: 19 July 2017
Date responded: 17 August 2017

Information requested

Minutes of meetings of the Managing Interactions Aquaculture Project (MIAP) steering group (Marine Scotland Science and Marine Scotland Policy were part of this steering group), from 2011 until it was disbanded.
Copies of any guidance documents, briefing papers, overviews or explanations given to Scottish Government Ministers, local planning authorities or government agencies regarding the MIAP, from the MIAP steering group, RAFTS/ASFB or from any officers of those agencies.
Copy of Tripartite Working Group concordat, and Area Management Agreements, along with minutes of any management meetings between 1 January 2011 to 19 July 2017.

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.

We do endeavour to provide information whenever possible, and the following documents are attached:

Minutes of meetings of the Managing Interactions Aquaculture Project (MIAP) steering group (Marine Scotland Science and Marine Scotland Policy were part of this steering group), from 2011 until it was disbanded. (Please refer to attachment 1).
Guidance documents, briefing papers, overviews and explanations to Scottish Government Ministers, local planning authorities or government agencies regarding the MIAP, from the MIAP steering group, RAFTS/ASFB or from any officers of those agencies. (Please refer to attachments 2 and 3).

You also asked for copies of the following – these are all available online:

The Tripartite Working Group (TWIG) concordat: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/295194/0121878.pdf.

TWG Area Management Agreements: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/marine/Fish-Shellfish/18364/18610/previous/TWG/regions

TWG management meeting minutes: http://wayback.archive-it.org/3011/20130201185242/http://scotland.gov.uk/Topics/marine/Fish-Shellfish/TWG/Publications

Exceptions

An exception under EIR regulation 11(2) (personal data) applies to someof the information requested. This relates to names and a personal phone numbers of a third party and disclosing this would contravene the data protection principles in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998.

An exception under EIR Regulation 10(4) (d) also applies to some of the information requested, as it concerns draft material in the course of completion, unfinished documents, or incomplete data.

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