Information relating to Imidacloprid (BMK08/Ectosan), CleanTreat and Benchmark: EIR release

Information requested

Please provide any information on Imidacloprid (BMK08/Ectosan), CleanTreat and Benchmark since 17 April 2021 (i.e. since a FOI filed on that date: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi- 202100195003/). Please include any media lines, internal discussions, replies to journalists, Cabinet Briefings, emails, letters and other information relating to Imidacloprid (BMK08/Ectosan), CleanTreat and Benchmark since 17 April 2021.

Please include any details of SAIC’s funded Cleantreat project and technology as referred to in the email below (obtained from SEPA via FOI). Please provide any correspondence with Benchmark as well as other parties including SAIC, SEPA, Nature Scotland, VMD, Salmon Scotland (SSPO), the Scottish Government, Mowi, Leroy, Scottish Sea Farms and any other parties on the subject of CleanTreat and Imidacloprid (BMK08/Ectosan Vet). It is understood that Benchmark and SAIC are actively seeking approval to use Imidacloprid via the CleanTreat system.

Please consider this a FOI request under the relevant FOI and Environmental Information regulations. Please provide the information electronically”.

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.

Exemptions apply
I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulation 10(4)(e) (internal communications), regulation 10(4)(d) (material in course of completion, unfinished documents or incomplete data), regulation 11(2) (personal information of a third party) and regulation 10(4)(a) (information not held) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons why these exceptions apply are explained in the Annex to this letter.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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 202200288263 - Information Released - Annex

File type

2 page PDF

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99.2 kB