Request
1. A list of all CES salmon farm tenants on a site-by-site basis that have, as per their lease agreements, submitted annual returns to CES outlining their production of harvested farmed salmon in 2018.
2. The tonnage of harvested salmon declared by each of these sites for 2018
3. Any further information relating to the numbers, or size, of fish harvested as declared by each site held by CES
4. A copy all forms submitted to CES by each site for the purpose of calculating annual production in 2018.
Response
For clarity, the numbering in our response corresponds with the numbering in your request.
1. We don’t compile our information by site, but by lease agreement. However, the majority of the agreements are associated to an individual site. Enclosed is a spreadsheet that lists all of our agreements in relation to salmon farms. The spreadsheet includes a column called ‘tonnage’: this records the tenant-reported production of fish for 2018.
2. Please refer to the ‘tonnage’ column of the enclosed spreadsheet.
3. This is information we do not collect. Therefore, exception 10(4)(a) – Information not held, under EIRs is applied.
4. Each form submitted to Crown Estate Scotland, contains personal data which would need to be redacted on each individual form (approximately 260 forms). I sought clarity from yourself, checking if a spreadsheet that listed the tonnage information would suffice; which we received confirmation that it would indeed suffice. The spreadsheet enclosed contains the tonnage figure which is the annual production from each Agreement for 2018.
We consider that your request is a request for information under section 1 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (“FOISA”). To the extent that the information contained within the scope of the request is environmental information as defined in regulation 2 of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (“EIRs”), we also consider that your request falls under the EIRs.
We have therefore applied the exemption contained in section 39(2) of FOISA and will deal with your request for environmental information under the EIRs alone.
