The Torridon fishery district catch data: EIR release

Information requested

The Torridon fishery district catch data appears to be missing data for years 1974-1986 for rods [and] 1978 – 1988 for nets. Was there no fishing these years or is the data missing.

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.

Response to your request

The answer to your question is that the published data includes all catch data received from the Torridon District. We were informed that rod fishing took place during seasons 1977 and 1978 but no catch information was returned. No returns were received from the Torridon District from 1974 to 1976, and 1979 to 1986 for the rod fishery, or from 1978 to 1988 for the net fishery.

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.