Mortality Event Reports - Scottish Sea Farms correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for ‘information on Scottish Sea Farms (Norskott Havbruk) since 1 September 2019’ and specifically to include the following:

• ‘emails, letters, data, photos, briefings, responses to media inquiries, reactions to Twitter, legal representations and other documentation in relation to Scottish Sea Farms (including their Norwegian owners Leroy and SalMar and any legal representatives acting on behalf of Scottish Sea Farms or via Norskott Havbruk)’
• ‘details of any meetings with Scottish Sea Farm officials’
• ‘any emails and letters in relation to site inspections, photos, disease, testing, sampling, well boats, chemicals, lice, escapes, biomass exceedances, seal killings and any other information specifically in relation to Scottish Sea Farms since 1 September 2019’

You further requested that the response should include ‘any Mortality Event Reports (including the email which details the information)’.

Clarification
We clarified your request on 25 February 2020 due to the very broad scope of ‘any information on Scottish Sea Farms’ and we directed you to published information which may be of interest to you.

Subsequently you responded and confirmed that the request should be focused on:

• ‘Emails to and from Scottish Sea Farms staff since 1 September 2019 (e.g. Mortality Event Reports or information that feeds into them, and reports of seal killings).’

Within the above, you have requested that we include ‘specific information in relation to mortalities and disease (including lice) at Scottish Sea Farms since 1 September 2019’.

I have therefore interpreted your request to relate to specific information concerning the subject areas of mortality, disease (including sea lice) along with reports of seal killings with respect to fish farm sites operated by Scottish Sea Farms Ltd, and specifically in relation to communications to and from staff of Scottish Sea Farms Ltd. The time scale of the request is from 1 September 2019 to 14 February 2020.

Response

As you will be aware, and as has been explained to you previously, Marine Scotland’s Fish Health Inspectorate actively publish information relating to the aquatic animal health surveillance programme.

Included within our publications is information concerning mortality and sea lice as received through the respective reporting regimes implemented by Scotland’s Aquaculture Industry. You can access published information through the following website link: https://www.gov.scot/collections/publication-of-fish-health-inspectorate-information/

Relevant information received through email communications relating to mortality and sea lice reporting is published through active publication.

The attached email communication falls under the scope of your request and concerns communications relating to mortality and fish transfer with respect to the Scottish Sea Farms Ltd. fish farm site – Knock Hatchery.

You will note that some information has been redacted from that supplied. This is because an exception at 11(2) (personal data) of the EIRs applies to some of the information because it is personal data of a third party. Disclosing this 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.

We hold no further information relevant to your request.

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/202000016462 - Information Released

File type

2 page PDF

File size

508.3 kB