Number of fishermen recorded working out of various harbours: EIR release

Information requested

The number of fishermen that you have recorded working out of harbours, broken down by Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Buckie, Stornaway and Scrabster for 2024 (to the present date), 2023, 2022 and 2021 please?

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.

The information you requested for fishermen in 2023 is shown in the table below. This is the number of fishers we have recorded as working on Scottish fishing vessels by district on 31 December 2023.

District	Number of Fishers
Buckie	137
Fraserburgh	705
Peterhead	329
Scrabster	121
Stornoway	281

Some of the information you have requested is available from the annual Scottish Sea Fisheries statistics published on the Scottish Government website. The 2021 fishers data is in table 45 in the supplementary tables to the 2021 publication at: Supporting documents - Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2021 - gov.scot. The 2022 fishers data is in table 45 in the supplementary tables to the 2022 publication: Supporting documents - Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2022 - gov.scot.

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 the Scottish Government does not have some of 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 explained in the Annex to this letter.

ANNEX

REASONS FOR NOT PROVIDING INFORMATION

The Scottish Government does not have the information

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 for 2024 because we haven’t collected it yet. We will collect information on number of fishers as at 31 December 2024 in early 2025.

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 fishers by district in 2024, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.