Aquaculture related freedom of information requests 2017-2018: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/02041    
Date received: 11 July 2018 
Date responded: 7 August 2018

 

 

There were responses to about 50 aquaculture related Freedom of Information requests published on the Scottish Government publications website in a nine-month period.

Most of these responses came from Marine Scotland Directorate.

1. Please could you disclose the names of the requesters, either individuals or organisations, in any aquaculture related requests made in the period from October 11, 2017, to July 11, 2018.

2. If possible, could you give an estimate of the costs involved in responding to these requests, either as a total or an average per request.

3. Could you reveal if there were any more aquaculture related requests in this period that are not on the publications list.

 

The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because the Scottish Government does not record the cost of replying to FOI requests.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

However, the following information may be of interest to you. In 2012 the Scottish Government carried out a corporate analysis of the costs of FOI – published on the Scottish Government website at http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0040/00408430.pdf.

The analysis provided an annualised average cost for each stage that an FOI request can go through, e.g. requests, reviews and appeals in 2011 – see Table 12 on page 15.  These average costs were:

• Request: £219
• Review: £419
• Appeal: £1344

Therefore any request that progressed to review would cost a total of £635 (request + review). In the same way, any request to appeal would cost a total of £1,979 (request + review + appeal).

You may wish to note that staff members respond to FOI requests as part of their normal day to day duties therefore a more accurate/up-to-date cost cannot be provided.

 A search of the Scottish Government’s database found that 47 aquaculture related Freedom of Information requests were received and information released for the requested period, 11 October 2017 to 11 July 2018.  While we cannot release details of those individuals, or organisations etc. who made requests we can provide a breakdown by type of requester.

Breakdown by type:-

a) Organisation - 26

b) Solicitor – 12

c) Individual – 4

d) Researcher – 4

e) Other – 1

Total 47

Total cost of replying to requests (based on the cost model above) = £10,293

In response to point 3. of your request, the Scottish Government only publish responses where information is being provided, we do not publish responses that refuse the request such as cost limit or information not held so the number of requests received may differ from the number of requests published.

About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses