European Protected Species (EPS) license applications submitted to Marine Scotland and Nature Scot: EIR release

Information requested

“Please send electronic* copies of all** commercial and research/scientific EPS license applications submitted to Marine Directorate (Marine Scotland) and Nature Scot, from 01.12.20 onwards, whereby there is/was planned activity that involves use of any Acoustic Deterrent Device or Acoustic Harassment Device or Acoustic Startle Response Device or other similar sound production system in any marine or subsea environment, such as aquaculture or offshore construction or fisheries management for mitigation purposes that are not exclusive to the removal and/or protection of varying marine mammal species groups from/in a particular area and whereby the location of planned usage is inside a designated Special Protection Area (SPA).

*Paper copy if no electronic version available

**All = granted/approved status, pending/in process status and rejected/refused status”

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

I enclose some of the information requested. 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 regulation 11(2) - personal information of a third party, of the EIRs apply to that information.

Regulation 11(2) – To the extent that environmental information requested includes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject and in relation to which either the first or second condition set out in paragraphs (3) and (4) is satisfied, a Scottish public authority shall not make the personal data available.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information of a third party) 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.

Some of the information you have requested is available from marine.gov.scot. You may wish to search for “ADD” and “EPS” which will give the location of planned usage inside a designated Special Protection Area (SPA).

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(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Some of the information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the Scottish Government will have been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright.You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright material on the National Archives website
at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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 research/scientific EPS license applications within 12 nautical miles may be requested from NatureScot.

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.

EIR 202400420277 - Information Released - Documents 1-4

File type

33 page PDF

File size

3.5 MB