Current status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 21 October 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of Marine Fund Scotland's award of the collection of fisheries observer data to commercial subsidiaries of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, how these commercial subsidiaries are working on this with the Marine Directorate, and by what date the data and accompanying documents from the project will be released.
The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has collected data as part of the Scottish Demersal Observer Programme with the Marine Directorate since 2014. The data collected by the scientific observers are provided to the Marine Directorate and are used for the annual estimation of bycatch weights and numbers by species, size and fishery in March of each year for the previous calendar year. These estimates are provided during April-July of each year to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) for use in stock assessments, to the Scottish and UK governments to inform fisheries management, and to the fishing industry to provide evidence towards Marine Stewardship Council Sustainability Certification. A report summarising the time series of bycatch estimates is compiled each summer by the Marine Directorate. The report is available on request to the Marine Directorate and work has recently begun to make this publicly available online.