Salmon Farming Welfare: EIR release

Information requested

“With reference to salmon (fish) farming taking place in Scotland and the organisations the RSPCA, RSPCA Assured/Freedom Foods Ltd, please provide the following information for the period 1 Jan 2018 to present:

- 1)* Any/all communications/correspondence between the Scottish Government and its regulatory bodies (including but not limited to Marine Scotland, Veterinary Medicines Directorate, SEPA, APHA and/or any other body with responsibility for regulating salmon farming) and the RSPCA or RSPCA Assured, in regard to salmon farming regulations

- 2)* Any/all communications held by the Scottish Government which are about or include reference to the RSPCA/RSPCA Assured and their involvement with salmon farming in Scotland.”

*I have inserted the numbers 1 & 2 above to distinguish between the two parts of your original request when seeking clarification.

Further clarification was sought from you on 15 April 2024 in order to help identify and locate the information that you had asked for:

“Regarding part 1) of your request, we have interpreted this as you asking for “any/all communications/correspondence between the Scottish Government (which would include the Marine Directorate and any other relevant Scottish Government directorates) AND the RSPCA or RSPCA Assured, in regard to salmon farming regulations.”

• Bearing in mind my above clarification that the regulatory bodies to which you refer are subject to information requests in their own right please can you advise that our interpretation is as you intended?
• To help with our searches, please can you be more specific about what aspect of salmon farming regulations you are interested in?
• The date range you have specified, from 1 January 2018 to 14 April 2024 inclusive, covers a period of over six years of records. If it was possible for you to narrow the period of interest further this could also help to make the request more manageable.”

You responded on 18 April 2024 to confirm that regarding part 1) of your request, you agreed with our interpretation above. You further clarified that: “At this stage I am primarily interested in establishing the extent of all communication on any subject to do with salmon farming with RSPCA/RSPCA Assured. i.e. How many contacts, with whom, in what form, when and the content of those communications. I appreciate it is a longer period of time but I cannot reduce it.”

At this juncture my colleague also clarified a few points, which I reiterate below, because your request and our response will be published on the Scottish Government website (here) in due course.

• “Marine Scotland” is now known as “the Marine Directorate”, in order to align with the naming convention of the other Scottish Government directorates.
• When we answer an information request, we do so on behalf of the entire Scottish Government (SG), which includes the Marine Directorate (MD), as well as all other SG directorates. This will involve searching all SG record management systems for any information held within the scope of a request.
• We will not routinely hold any communications/correspondence that any other regulatory bodies have had with the RSPCA or RSPCA Assured. This would include the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, SEPA and APHA that you have listed. Each of these regulatory bodies are subject to information requests in their own right, and so you would need to put in an information request with any of these bodies directly. We can only answer on behalf of the Scottish Government.
• Veterinary Medicines Directorate & APHA: How to make a freedom of information (FOI) request: Overview - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• SEPA: Access to information | Beta | SEPA | Scottish Environment Protection Agency

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

Revised request: At this stage I am primarily interested in establishing the extent of all communication on any subject to do with salmon farming with RSPCA/RSPCA Assured. i.e. How many contacts, with whom, in what form, when and the content of those communications.

The date range you confirmed was from 1 January 2018 to 14 April 2024 inclusive.

Our response: I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested. Please find PDF items 1 to 14 attached. 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) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to that information. The reasons why that exception applies are explained below.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested 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.

Additional information provided out with the EIRs

Under regulation 9 of the EIRs (our duty to provide advice and assistance) we would like to advise you that there are two principle contacts within RSPCA Assured that have communicated with the Scottish Government over the time range specified.

Furthermore, to be helpful we can confirm that the following meetings took place between SG and RSPCA Assured representatives (date ranges are given where a record of the exact date was not found, and meeting records referenced where they exist and are to be released):

• 16 March 2022 (video call, meeting note included in released documents)
• July-July August 2023 (video call)
• 14 October 2022 (in person at Victoria Quay)
• 5 Feb 2024 (video call)

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 202400409243 - Information Released - Items 1 to 14 (binder)

File type

65 page PDF

File size

2.5 MB