Scottish Government

1. Overview of the Scottish Fishing Fleet

1.1 The regulation of the UK Fleet

The structure and capacity of the UK and Scottish fishing fleets has, since 1983, been dictated primarily by the EU Common Fisheries Policy ( CFP). Between 1997 and 2002, fleet structure was managed within the CFP through the fourth Multi Annual Guidance Programme ( MAGP) designed to tailor fleet capacity to available fish stocks across the EU. Under this programme, the UK fishing fleet was divided into eight segments, defined primarily by broad fishing method ¹, and capacity limits or effort reduction targets set for each segment. MAGPIV has now ended and has been replaced by global effort ceilings at member state level controlled through a system of entry/exit controls. In simple terms, a vessel can only enter the fleet when equivalent capacity has exited the fleet.

At a UK level to date, restrictive licensing has been the main Government instrument to bring the activities of the UK fishing fleet into line with MAGP and UK aims on fleet and catch management. Aside from a few limited exceptions, all vessels engaged in commercial sea fishing are required to hold a licence issued by UK Fisheries Departments. There are a finite number of licences in existence and no new licences are made available. This places a ceiling on the total number of vessels in the UK fishing fleet. In order to licence new vessels, fishermen must acquire one or more existing licences from other previously licensed vessels. Capacity penalties are applied when licences are transferred, or aggregated to form a larger licence unit, and these, together with the restricted number of licences on issue, form a mechanism resulting in reductions in the capacity of the UK fleet.

The UK restrictive licensing controls, in combination with successive decommissioning schemes (1994-1997; 2001-2002 and 2003-2004) designed to conserve vulnerable whitefish stocks, particularly cod, explain many of the fleet trends in recent years. Two successive decommissioning schemes in 2001-2002 and 2003-04, removed 165 vessels from the fleet.

1.2 Fleet size

There were 2,205 active fishing vessels based in Scotland at the end of 2008, a net increase of 14 (1 per cent) since 2007 ( Table 1). There were increases in the number of active vessels in 9 out of 18 districts (Table I below), with gains mainly in districts on the east coast.

Table I: Changes in numbers of active Scottish based vessels 2007-08, by district.

Source:Table 6 and equivalent 2007 figures.

From 1998 to 2004, the number of vessels in the Scottish under 10m fleet remained fairly steady at around 1,600. From 2004 to 2008, the number decreased by 103 to 1,492. The over 10 metres fleet is now 25 per cent smaller than in 2000, before the decommissioning schemes in 2001-02 and 2003-04. This segment grew by 16 vessels (2 per cent) between 2007 and 2008 to 713, due to the increase in the number of shellfish boats from 381 to 397.

1.3 Vessel Capacity

1.3.1 Engine Power

Engine power statistics in earlier years have been underestimated to an unknown degree, due the inclusion of vessels with engines operating at a higher power than permitted on their licences. In November 1999, in response to this problem, Fisheries Departments introduced special (concessionary) licensing arrangements and a timetable for compliance with engine power controls. Under the compliance timetable licence holders who have admitted to under declaration, had until the end of 2004 to ensure that either: (i) their true engine power is registered and to have acquired enough licence entitlement to cover this, or (ii) to have de-rated their engine to the figure on their licence. In practice, most have chosen to acquire extra licences to cover their operational engine power. Consequently, it needs to be borne in mind that, after 1999, the trends in average engine power shown in Table 1 are complicated by the effect of an increasing number of owners declaring their true, higher, engine power. Nevertheless, while this bias makes the actual rate of change unclear, it is clear that Scottish based vessels are now fishing with greater engine power on average than in the past.

The total registered engine power of the over 10m Scottish fleet was 342 thousand kilowatts in 2008 ( Table 1), 6 per cent higher than in 2007 but 9 per cent lower than in 1998. Average engine power per vessel, at 480 kW, has increased by 4 percent in 2008 and by 31 per cent since 1998. The opposing trends of decreasing total fleet engine capacity and increasing average engine power can be explained by a combination of factors: (i) the 31 per cent reduction in the number of vessels in the over 10 m fleet since 1998 ( Table 4); (ii) the "natural wastage" of licensed engine power that often accompanies the aggregation of several licences onto a single vessel ² and; (iii) since 1999, the progressive correction of under declared engine power, in line with the concessionary licensing arrangements noted above.

1.3.2 Effort by the Scottish fleet

In the years before 2009, EU regulations set limits on the numbers of days at sea in the cod recovery zone for fishing vessels of 10 metres and over, when using certain types of regulated gear. Fisheries administrations monitor effort uptake by vessels using regulated fishing gears in and around the cod recovery zone.

Effort in the cod recovery zone by the Scottish over 10 metre fleet using whitefish gear dropped substantially between 2000 to 2004 ( Table 10), reflecting the reduction in fleet capacity resulting from the decommissioning schemes in 2001-02 and 2003-04. Over this period, whitefish effort dropped by 62 per cent in the North Sea and by 40 per cent in the West of Scotland. From 2004 to 2007, effort continued to decline, albeit less rapidly. In 2008, whitefish effort by the Scottish over 10 metre fleet stood at 12.2 million kWdays in the North Sea, an increase of 1.2 million kWdays (10 per cent) compared to 2007, and stood at 2.0 million kWdays in the West of Scotland, at around the same level as the 2007 effort.

Effort in the cod recovery zone by the Scottish over 10 metre fleet using Nephrops gear stood at 9.2 million kWdays in the North Sea and 4.8 million kWdays in the West of Scotland in 2008. This is an increase of 0.3 million kWdays (3 per cent) in the North Sea and an increase of 0.1 million kWdays (2 per cent) in the West of Scotland compared to 2007. Looking at the longer term trends, Nephrops effort in the North Sea more than doubled between 2000 and 2003, increasing by 5.1 million kWdays (106 per cent) but has remained roughly stable afterwards. In the West of Scotland, Nephrops effort has been roughly stable since 2000.

Effort in 2008 by the Scottish over 10 metre fleet in the North Sea and West of Scotland areas of the cod recovery zone is dominated by whitefish (46 per cent) and Nephrops (46 per cent) gears. In 2000, whitefish gears accounted for 73 per cent of total effort and Nephrops gears accounted for 17 per cent. This reflects the long term trend of decreasing whitefish effort; and increasing and then stabilising Nephrops effort.

1.4 Employment

The 2005 employment figures were revised in the 2006 bulletin because they were affected by an understatement in the figures recorded by Peterhead Fisheries Office. The 2005 figures for Peterhead have been estimated as being the same as the 2006 figures.

Total employment in the catching sector increased from 5,424 to 5,448 in 2008 ( Table 11), an increase of under 1 per cent compared with 2007. The number of fishermen regularly employed on Scottish based vessels in 2008, at 4,585, was 4 per cent higher than in 2007 ( Table 13). The number of irregularly employed fishermen decreased in 2008 by 15 per cent to 807.

At a district level, the largest increases in the recorded numbers in employment occurred at Fraserburgh (+55 jobs) and Oban (+45 jobs), while the largest decreases in the recorded numbers in employment occurred at Orkney (-60 jobs) and Shetland (-53 jobs). Fraserburgh has the most fishermen in regular and total employment.