Chamber and committees

A key development that has taken place since the publication of the REC Committee report is the introduction of SEPA’s new fin-fish aquaculture regulatory framework, which came in on 1 June 2019. That brought in a new and tighter standard for organic waste deposited by fish farms. What key actions has the industry made to address the environmental issues related to waste and chemical discharges that were identified by the RECC inquiry?

Yes. I am sure that somebody will be picking that up.

The Scottish Government’s analysis as part of its consultation on new standards for the use of emamectin benzoate found that farmers generally prefer to use the chemical as an in-feed medicine, because it is easy to administer and does not require fish to undergo special handling and all the rest of it. The industry expressed concern about the potential for tighter standards around its use, because that would have a negative impact on fish welfare and mortality. Do you still have those concerns?

SEPA collects it, but does not publish it. Therefore, the only publicly available information is from the companies.

You talked about bringing in other medicines or chemicals to act with emamectin. Would that create another problem?

In the past, Audit Scotland has expressed concern about having access to ALEOs. I understand that some ALEOs at least are now being caught up in the exercise. Where are we on that?

With regard to expenditure that is useful to the NFI exercise, which significant areas are excluded or are poorly participating?

If there are no changes, can you say more about what is happening with the Cabinet Office with regard to delivering improved outcomes? Presumably, you have been working on that for a couple of years, so where are we on that?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. There is an increase in NFI savings and outcomes from £14.9 million to £21.5 million. That is not a lot when you look at the exercise overall, but it has increased. Supposedly, that is partly because of the recovery from Covid-19. You also referred to some changes in methodologies. Can you expand on the changes that have led to that increase?

Many of the participating bodies submit only payroll and creditors data sets for matching. Obviously, that limits the outcomes that can be achieved. Maybe you can indicate which public bodies are submitting only that sort of data. Does that mean that there is scope for some public bodies to submit more data sets? If so, what are they, and why are they not doing that?

Given the size of the public sector spend, if the payroll is 85 per cent of the budget, 15 per cent is still an awful lot of money, which we are missing out on being included in the NFI.