Marine Scotland - Dived Scallop vessels: EIR release

Information requested

During the period January 01/01/20 to 01/01/24 How many times did Marine Scotland officials carry out landing inspections Dived scallop vessels at sea? Of the times that inspections where carried out, how many infringements where noted and what action was carried out against the vessels involved in the infringements?

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.

Before answering the question, we would like to clarify that: “Marine Scotland” is now known as the “Marine Directorate.” This is in order to align with the naming convention of other Scottish Government Directorates.

We would also like to note that an inspection in port is defined as a physical inspection of the vessel where some or all of the catch was inspected either on the vessel, as it lands or on completion of landing for example on a market or to a lorry. It may include checks in addition to an inspection of the catch, such as, for example, fishing gear or documentation, however, if none of the catch is inspected, then it would not be recorded as an inspection.

In the period of 01/01/20 to 01/01/24 we have recorded the following numbers of inspections:

Coastal inspections at time of landing:

2020: 2 - No infringements

2021: 4 - No infringements

2022: 4 - No infringements

2023: 6 - Out of these 6 inspections, one suspected infringement has been identified. Due to the fact that the enforcement process is still ongoing, we are unable to release further details on this case.

1/1/2024: 0

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.