Kelp harvesting - Fergus Ewing, Marine Scotland, and Crown Estate correspondence: EIR appeal

Information requested

Copies of any correspondence since 2015 between Fergus Ewing, as Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity or Minister for Business, Energy and Tourism, and Marine Scotland and the Crown Estate relating to proposals for kelp harvesting.

Response

I am writing to advise you that we have given further consideration to your request and have identified some additional information which would fall within the scope of your request. I therefore enclose a copy of this information, with a small amount of personal data redacted under Regulation 11(2) and apologise for the delay in providing it to you.  

For both the email dated 27 June 2018 regarding a submission on Wild Seaweed Harvesting, and the email chain dated 26 October 2017, due to the passage of time some of the information previously withheld under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs can now be disclosed. 

We have also further considered the information within the email of 26 October 2017 @ 10:07 withheld under regulation 10(5)(e), and have determined that this information did not have the necessary quality of commercial confidentiality for regulation 10(5)(e) to apply, and we are therefore withdrawing our reliance on this exception. However, we are retrospectively applying regulation 10(4)(e) to this information, for the reasons previously provided in our review response dated 30 May 2019.

In addition, some of the information you have requested is available https://www2.gov.scot/seag/seagDocs/SEA-01121/17459.pdf. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.  If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

In addition, some information which may be of interest to you is available http://www.hie.co.uk/growth-sectors/life-sciences/natural-products.html. This information would not fall within the scope of your request as it is not part of communications between the parties you have indicated, but it is in relation to the topic of your request.

Finally, I can confirm that some information remains exempt from disclosure under Regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications) and Regulation 11(2) (personal data) for the reasons given in our review previous response. 

I have therefore attached further copies of these documents disclosing this additional information.

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FOI-18-03511 - Appeal - Information Released

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13 page PDF

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