FOI/202200273744 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Correspondence regarding Clyde fishing ground closure: EIR release
Information requested
Correspondence with all stakeholders / pressure groups / industry representatives regarding the Clyde fishing ground closure. This can be any Scottish Government Cabinet Secretaries, Ministers or civil servants in the period 1 October 2021 and 18 January 2022 and include emails, Whatsapp messages and meeting minutes.
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. I attach a copy of some of the information you requested. 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. You will note that this information has been redacted throughout the disclosed documents. 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 exceptions under regulations 10(40(d) (material in the course of completion) and 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs apply to that information. These exceptions are subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. We recognise that there is some public interest in release on the basis of interest in an open and transparent government. However, in the case of these documents, this is outweighed by the public interest in not releasing documents which contain elements relevant to internal policy decision making. 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.
Detected exemption language
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. 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.