Wading Through Treacle. Campaign Update.

Hi folks,

Hope you're all doing well.

Just to let you know I've been communicating with NatureScot about their lethal control wildlife licences - and asking them when they plan to release more data.

Before I launch into the update, it's been on my mind that we seem to have a distinct lack of transparency within some UK government departments.
Data, that is of public interest, is routinely hidden from public view. I'm referring in particular to information relating to our country's wildlife and how human activities and industrialisation are affecting nature in this country.

Through our campaign, we have succeeded in making Natural England's wildlife licence data available to the public every year, and I think we can now see just how much of an achievement this really is - certainly not something that we can take for granted when dealing with other government agencies.
That was a long battle, but through calm discourse, a result was achieved and the public can now examine Natural England's licences in some detail - even if we take issue with some of the decisions made... but that's the point really - having access to the data enables public scrutiny of Natural England's activities, leading to debate and discussion, which is surely a good thing.

In other areas of government though, concealing data seems to be the default position, especially when it might lead to the public asking awkward questions - an example of this was when I recently asked Defra to release cetacean stranding data following an increase in dead whales, dolphins and porpoises washing up on the UK's beaches. They declined, saying the information was not ready for publication, maintaining that "disclosing datasets in their raw state would give a misleading or inaccurate impression that would likely result in incorrect conclusions, drawn out of context." This in spite of their undertaking to publish annual stranding reports, which are currently running three years late....(more on that in a moment).

NatureScot
So, on to NatureScot. Given their track record of permitting high levels of lethal control, I know you'd all like to see the latest figures detailing how many licences Scotland has been issuing, and you might remember that it was way back in March 2023 when NatureScot assured me that they would be publishing data regularly - after I asked them if they could be more transparent about their work; back then they told me, "We agree on the benefits of publishing this information and are keen to ensure openness and transparency of our licensing functions," adding "we are currently in the process of formatting licence information which will be published on our website on a regular basis".

Well, 'openness and transparency' is always good - but it took a further four months for them to publish some relevant information - and even then it was a heavily edited set of licence data which omitted key information. At the time NatureScot rejected my call to share more detailed statistics, telling me that "while data on the specific numbers associated with each licence is very informative we concluded that the time taken to process this quantity of data would not be viable and would impede on current licensing demand."

Then, in a plot twist, the following month they very quietly published the full data on their website. The details, as expected, were shocking, high levels of lethal control across many species.

By the end of 2023, I had received a further assurance from NatureScot telling me that "We plan to publish it [the licence data] annually so we can include the returns data and everyone can see how much lethal control was actually undertaken rather than just the numbers that were licenced. We will start collating that data in the New Year."

Great. But wait.....

Ambiguous
Fast forward to last month, and I asked NatureScot if they were now able to share the latest data, as there has been scant information available for licences issued since June 2023, more than a year ago, other than a brief summary which was skeletal and lacked any significant detail.
I was pleased to see that communication channels remained open and I was told that "We are just on the cusp of releasing all our data [....] to complete the info we have available."
'On the cusp of releasing data' sounded very hopeful, but I asked for clarification and confirmation that recent licences, issued since June 2023, would also be included in this upcoming release.

I finally got a response from NatureScot, but there was an ambiguous start to the conversation, not least because they didn't seem to know when the information would be published.
"We are currently working on updating the lethal control data alongside our broader summaries of the numbers of licences issued each month." Okay, well we knew that already, but they went on to explain that they are "...in the process of training up a Licensing Support Officer in this task but with holidays and the new grouse licensing system going live it is difficult to put a solid timeline on this."
I expressed my disappointment at the lack of any specific timeline, which prompted a further response from NatureScot's senior licensing officer, "I have scheduled in the training with our Licensing Support Officer so this gives me a better idea of when we can aim for the data to be live. Currently we are aiming for end of September but as I say [....] this is hard to confirm with the nature of the licensing workloads."

So perhaps September then? Or maybe not?
Who knew that 'openness and transparency' could be such a challenging aspiration to fulfil?

​Well, please rest assured that as soon as the data is published, I will issue a further update with a link to the information.

Whales....
Speaking of hidden data,  it is with similarly treacle-wading frustration that I'm still trying to persuade Defra to release the statistics relating to cetacean strandings.... Defra told both me and the Information Commissioners Office (after I asked them to intervene), that they would publish the 2021/22 figures in May or June of this year -  and they haven't. Maybe Defra's reticence to release the figures is because the 2020 data that they (eventually) published in May revealed the highest numbers of dead whales, porpoises and dolphins ever recorded in the UK, which is absolutely shocking.
Though there are doubtless many contributing factors for the terrible numbers of dead marine mammals, I lay much of the blame on the ongoing industrialisation of our seas, especially the expansion of offshore wind farms. This is where public debate could be useful - if we had the figures.
If marine mammal deaths have increased further, then that might explain why the government is delaying sharing the information with the public.... but I think it's in the public interest to see the data, something with which I think many of you will probably agree.
You can read more about this particular ongoing saga on my other blog, where I have a number of articles, click HERE.

I will continue to push for openness and transparency from these government departments - even if it does involve a lot of wading through treacle. 

Thanks for your continued support, encouragement - and patience!

Best,
Jase