Regulation of salmon farms: EIR release

Information requested

Any correspondence, emails, electronic messages or texts since 1 January 2023 between salmon farming companies or the industry body, Salmon Scotland, and ministers or senior officials relating to the regulation of salmon farms.

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.

Please note that Enclosure 20.1 in Annex A does not specifically relate to the regulation of salmon farms, however there are some references to the regulatory framework which we have provided in response to your request. The rest of this enclosure is out of scope of your request.

Response to your request

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested in Annex A ‘Index of enclosures’.

Some of the information you have requested is available from SEPA.org.uk (salmon_scotland_response_redacted.pdf (sepa.org.uk)). 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 listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

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 an exception under regulation 11(2) (Personal data of a third party) of the EIRs applies to that information. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs applies 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.

An exception under regulation 10(5)(f) of the EIRs (substantial prejudice to interests of person who provided the information) applies to some of the information you have requested. This exception applies because disclosure of this particular information would, or would be likely to, prejudice substantially the interests of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) who provided that information to the Scottish Government. They:

• were not under any legal obligation to give us that information;
• did not supply it in circumstances in which it could, apart from the EIRs, be made available; and
• have not consented to disclosure.

This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open and transparent government. However, there is a greater public interest in protecting the interests of anyone, such as SEPA, who provides the Scottish Government with information on a confidential basis. Disclosing such information against the express wishes of the stakeholder is likely to undermine their trust in the Government and make them reluctant in future to share information with us on issues such as in relation to the regulation of salmon farming in Scotland. This would significantly impair the Scottish Government’s ability to develop policies and make decisions on the basis of fully informed advice and evidence. This would not be in the public interest.

To provide more context as to why this information is redacted in this instance, SEPA’s development of the sea lice visualisation tool as referred to in the enclosure is not yet completed.

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 202400395566 - Information Released - Annex A

File type

72 page PDF

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1.0 MB