Remote electronic monitoring information for razor clam trial: EIR release

Information requested

All remote electronic monitoring information held by Marine Directorate generated by vessels taking part in the eleven razor clam trial areas, between dates 1st February 2021 and 31st January 2022. We are aware that this information would have to be provided in a way which does not identify particular vessels. A response by email would be preferable, and I would prefer the information to be presented in its original format, where possible.

If it is possible within the cost cap to include any of the analysis documents prepared by Scottish Government that would be helpful: the Marine Directorate Update: Electrofishing for Razor Clams Trial (1 February 2021 - 31 January 2022) document notes that one analysis was carried out for the Scottish Government Data Science Accelerator Programme (DSAP) and one by the Fully Documented Fishery Unit.

I spoke with you on 26 April 2024 to seek clarity on your request in order to help us identify the relevant information and you clarified that you were:

• Interested in: fishing effort, time spent fishing vs not fishing, want to create heat maps of activity. When referring to “Data Science Accelerator Programme (DSAP)/Fully Documented Fishery (FDF) Unit analysis”, you are interested in Scottish Government’s own analysis of data.
• Not interested in: any documents that are methods/standard operating procedures for using remote electronic monitoring (REM) information, activity of individual fishing vessels.

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.

1. All remote electronic monitoring information held by Marine Directorate generated by vessels taking part in the eleven razor clam trial areas, between dates 1st February 2021 and 31st January 2022. We are aware that this information would have to be provided in a way which does not identify particular vessels.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are set out below.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because in order to provide this information to you, it would be necessary for us to firstly, compile data from constituent resources, and then engage in further processing to enable provision of the data to you in any meaningful format. I have explained below why it is our view that in taking these steps, we would actually be creating new information in order to answer your request.

Regulation 10(4)(a) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs) allows public authorities to refuse to make environmental information available if they don’t hold the information when the request is received. Public authorities are not required to create information in order to answer a request.

There is a distinction between creating new information, and compiling information. Where a request can be answered by compiling information from readily-available resources held by the public authority, this is not the same as creating new information. However, if compiling information in order to respond to a request would require skill and complex judgement, it is less likely that the information can be said to be held for the purposes of the EIRs.

Our business area has undertaken worked examples with samples of raw data held to prepare the data for release under this request, and in doing so has determined that this requires a significant investment of skill and complex judgement: the relevant files relating to the date of the fishing trip and the fishing activity during that trip must first be separated by vessel, then aggregated together into a new file. Due to the nature of the dataset, this processing step must be carried out multiple times per vessel, and a checking system established to handle gaps and de-duplication where necessary – for example where an aggregation run uses up the maximum number of rows in an excel spreadsheet and had stopped mid-file, a system would need to be developed to determine how much of the final file in the run had been aggregated, and therefore how much of the same file to remove from the next aggregation run, as well as a system to check this had been carried out correctly.

Further processing is then still required in order to consider any appropriate removal of personal information for each vessel in question. This would lead to the removal of some information in each case, the precise nature of personal data removal varying by trial area and vessel. For instance we would also need to anonymise some trial areas in their entirety due to the small number of vessels operating in certain areas.

Our policy for Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data is to only release anonymised VMS data. We consider vessel names and numbers as personal data, and so we would apply an exception to their release under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs. This means all VMS data, apart from subject access requests, is anonymised. Additionally, we generally don’t release any VMS data where the number of vessels identified in any area is below five, however, we must apply both these restrictions on a caseby- case basis. VMS and REM data are comparable and so this same policy would naturally extend to any REM data we hold. Although you have requested that the data be provided anonymously, the raw data includes both vessel names and numbers so we must process the data to remove these.

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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about remote electronic monitoring information held by Marine Directorate generated by vessels taking part in the eleven razor clam trial areas, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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 is a scientific report currently in preparation, which will present analysis of the information described above in a format that you have indicated you would find useful, this is shortly to be published by the Scottish Ministers. We can advise you as soon as this publication is made available.
• When we were undertaking worked examples to check the feasibility of your request above, we noted that due to the nature of the personal data removal that would have been necessary in order to release the information to you, it would present an incomplete picture of fishing activity during the specified trial year. As you had indicated a principal interest you had in seeking this information was to create 'heat maps' of fishing activity, I can confirm that it would not have been possible to create such heat maps from all of the data we could have provided.

2. You clarified to us that you were interested in any of the Scottish Government’s (SG) own analysis documents relating to the Electrofishing for Razor Clams Trial that would be helpful.

In your original request you specifically mentioned any analysis carried out for the SG Data Science Accelerator Programme (DSAP) or Fully Documented Fishery (FDF) Unit.

DSAP analysis documents:

I enclose a copy of most of the information you requested. Please refer to:

a: Documents for release – REDACTED- Razor_update_23rd_Mar_2021_EIR_202400409586.pdf
b: Documents for release – DSAP Data Pipeline for the Razorclam Scientific Trial_EIR_202400409586.pdf
c: Documents for release – DSAP Closing Cohort Meeting 6th December 2021_EIR_202400409586.pdf

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.

FDF Unit analysis documents:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing part of your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are set out below.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested because although the FDF unit carries out analysis on remote electronic monitoring data, we can confirm that there was not a specific analysis document associated with this work.

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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about any documented analysis the FDF unit may have done, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above.

If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.

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.