Information

Completed risk assessments relating to movement of fish by boat: EIR release

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.


Information requested

A copy of all completed risk assessments, which relate to the movement of fish by boat over the last 2 years.

In communication with you we clarified the scope of your request. We confirmed that this should relate to risk assessments associated with seawater-to-seawater movements of live farmed salmon, for further farming purposes.

You provided an example of the type of information being requested which was useful for the process. In addition, within these follow up communications, you expanded the request on 13 November to include information relating to any situations where the Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) had requested risk assessments, and these were not provided by companies and the reason why. We have applied the same 2-year time period to this part of your request. You also asked if any other organisations would hold this type of information.

Response

Please find attached one risk assessment relating to the movement of fish between Torridon and Wester Ross. This is the only completed risk assessment, relevant to the scope of your request, which is held by the FHI / Scottish Government, excluding information which has already been provided to you through case EIR 202400411054.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to a small amount 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.

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 explained 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 second part of your request concerned ‘situations where the Fish Health Inspectorate (FHI) had requested risk assessments, and these were not provided by companies and the reason why.’ I can confirm that the FHI are not aware of any situations where this information was not provided when requested, with respect to the time scale of this request.
  • Accreditation and certification schemes may also be interested in the risk assessments referenced through this request. These documents may be inspected during their own inspection and audit activity; however, we are not aware of any other organisations who hold copies of these documents, beyond the individual companies themselves.

The exception at regulation 10(4)(a) 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 risk assessments and the specific points detailed above, 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.

EIR 202400440159 - Information released - Annex

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Correspondence Unit
Email: contactus@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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