Breached cross compliance regulations: EIR release

Information requested

Information about a subset of farms which each breached cross compliance regulations a number of times in the period 2017-2021. They are identified with the following reference numbers; 112674, 121579, 125517, 141240, 120598, 217433, 222353, 125178, 122146, 119091, 152794, 140949, 134822, 138964, 118735 and 125009.

For each you have requested -
A) Its legal or company name, if it has one.
B) The name of the sole trader or partnership, if it has no legal/company name.
C) The amount of public subsidy it received for each of the years from 2017 up to and including 2021.
D) How many times each farm was inspected under cross compliance rules for each of the years from 2017 up to and including 2021.

In addition you have also requested how many cross compliance inspections in total were conducted for each of the years from 2017 up to and including 2021

Response

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to the information requested at A) and B) because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it 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. The exception has been applied based on information provided by the ICO - "Information about companies or public authorities is not personal data. However, information about individuals acting as sole traders, employees, partners and company directors where they are individually identifiable and the information relates to them as an individual may constitute personal data."

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protectionregulation-gdpr/key-definitions/what-is-personal-data/?q=natural

All 16 businesses are operated by either soles traders or small partnerships and their business name, in the context of cross compliances breaches, is considered to relate to them as individuals and as such considered to be personal data.

The attached spreadsheet provides the information requested at C), D) and how many cross compliance inspections in total were conducted for each of the years from 2017 up to and including 2021.

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 202200318675 - Information Released - Annex

File type

Excel document

File size

15.9 kB