Scottish Sea Fisheries Employment Report

Annex 2: Data collection

Survey Design: Data was collected using the face-to-face questionnaire with skippers and fishermen on the quayside in all major ports and the majority of small harbour throughout Scotland. The questionnaire was designed by Marine Scotland with input from Seafish. The survey was trialled in Fraserburgh at the start of the process in July 2013 and altered based on feedback. The data collection then started in August 2013 and was completed in November 2013. Small amendments were made during the survey to improve clarity and ease of use.

Survey Methods and Approach: Researchers were recruited through Seafish as part of their annual economic fleet survey. The researchers were trained by Seafish on the logistics and general survey skills and by Marine Scotland on this survey. Seafish provided contact lists for the area that each researcher was visiting along with resources to make phone calls and send e-mails. Example questionnaires and, in the second phase of the survey, a crew share diagram was supplied to aid in completing the questionnaire. The method of data collection was face-to-face interviews. In 88 instances where this was not possible a phone interview was conducted if participants consented and contact details were available.

Participants were selected using purposive stratified sampling by fleet segment. A random element was introduced based on who was available at the time when researchers were at each port. There was an element of self-selection as participation was purely voluntary. Vessel skippers were preferred to owners (if not the same individual) as interviewees, because skippers would be likely to be more capable of providing the most accurate information about individual crew members. Where skippers were not available, owners were interviewed. In total 59 non-skippers were interviewed. All participants were informed on the survey objectives and that the data would be anonymised and delivered to Marine Scotland for analysis. Once informed consent was given interviews proceeded. Researchers visited all major ports and most of the smaller ports in Scotland as part of the fieldwork. Researchers spent 5 days in a geographical area travelling to ports to meet with fishermen. Awareness of the survey was raised via the Seafish Twitter account and senior members of the team informing relevant contacts.

Areas visited included the following;

• Shetland
• Orkney
• Outer Hebrides
• Isle of Skye, Kyle, Torridon, Gairloch, Aultbea
• Ullapool, Lochinver, Kinlochbervie, Scrabster
• Wick - Buckie
• Peterhead and Fraserburgh
• Firth of Forth: St Andrews to Eyemouth
• Mallaig, Oban and Inner Hebrides
• Clyde: Campbeltown, Carradale, Tarbert, Troon
• Solway Firth: Scotland Only

The busier areas (Shetland, Peterhead and Fraserburgh, Clyde) were prioritised for second visits in November. In general, this time of year provided access to more skippers due to factors such as bad weather preventing fishing.

Final sample size by gear type, main fishing area and length class.

A ratio of 60% of completed questionnaires from the mobile gear segment was desired. The achieved sample included 57% of responses from the mobile gear segment, but also included a larger than required number of responses from the static gear segment which reduced the proportion of the total from mobile gears.

Data Entry: During the first phase of data collection, researchers entered their completed questionnaires into Excel which was checked for accuracy by Seafish. During the second phase this procedure was altered to one individual performing all data entry to ensure that a more uniform data set was produced.

Data Analysis: As outlined in the introduction, vessels have been clustered to high-level gear grouping to facilitate comparison between: 1) the mobile and static sectors; 2) North Sea and West of Scotland fleet; 3) vessels targeting different species and; 4) large and small vessels. To achieve this boats were clustered primarily by target species type to account for the different fishing patterns required to harvest each group of species and secondly by the size of vessel to reflect the size of crews and positions. This created five key sectors: 1) pots and traps (creel fishing); 2) demersal vessels under <24m; 3) demersal vessels over >24m, seiners and pair trawls; 4) Nephrops trawls and; 5) scallop dredgers. In some sections pots and traps and Nephrops vessels have been broken down into North Sea ( NS) and West of Scotland ( WoS) vessels for comparative analysis. All output were then produced using pivot tables and excel and plotted to describe comparisons between groups, sectors and positions.