| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
9 Jun 2009 : Column 802W—continued
Not all the data and information requested are available. In some cases, the number of days at sea and the cost of vessel trips is often included in the set cost of the contract, so there is no specific record other than an overall cost. In addition, Natural England does not hold data on the number of individual boats that are hired over time.
The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has neither owned nor leased any ships or boats in the last three financial years. Details of ships and boats hired by, or on behalf of, the JNCC in the last three financial years are listed in the table which includes:
1. Vessels hired directly by JNCC;
2. Vessels hired on JNCC’s behalf by DEFRA;
3. Vessels hired by JNCC but costs recovered from DEFRA through a memorandum of understanding between both parties.
| Financial year | Ships hired by or on behalf of the JNCC | Number of operational days spent at sea | Expenditure incurred by hiring such vessels (£) |
| (1) As a consequence of the different hiring models noted above, there may be an overlap of up to £250,000 between JNCC’s supplied costs and those supplied by CEFAS. | |||
Sea Fisheries Committees (SFCs) are local authority committees, and DEFRA’s role in relation to the operation of SFCs is restricted generally to the appointment of some of the members of each Committee and to the confirmation of SFC byelaws. Information supplied by the Association of Sea Fisheries Committees on behalf of the SFCs is set out as follows. Further information about the SFCs is available in their annual reports or in papers prepared for the Committees’ meetings and available under the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985.
| Vessels owned | Vessels leased | Operational sea days | Expenditure on purchasing (£) | Expenditure on leasing (£) | |||||||||||
| Sea Fisheries Committee | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 | 06-07 | 07-08 | 08-09 |
| (1) This is a secondary lease on “Solway Protector”. (2) Patrol numbers which may include periods of more than one day at sea. (3) One boat is laid up following theft of engine. (4) “North Eastern Guardian II” was sold out of service mid year. (5) “North Eastern Guardian III” was commissioned in July 2008. (6) Isles of Scilly has no dedicated vessels. This Committee utilises the Islands’ harbour master launches or the patrol services of the Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee. Notes: 1. No ships or boats have been hired in the period for which information was requested. 2. Enforcement at sea takes place on an intelligence led basis and in any case is subject to weather conditions. There are days when it is neither necessary nor prudent as judged against the capabilities of the ships or boats available to the Sea Fisheries Committees, to take them to sea. Theoretical availability is also lost to planned and to short notice maintenance needs as well as restricted by crew availability. Crew members may, for example, be required in court to give prosecution evidence or to do other higher priority work. | |||||||||||||||
The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) owns and operates one 73 m sea-going research vessel the “Cefas Endeavour”. The “Cefas Endeavour” is also made available to other DEFRA partners such as JNCC and Natural England to enable them to deliver their work programmes. CEFAS also hires other vessels on a charter basis. The figures provided include charters of vessels under the Fisheries Science Partnership.
The number of vessels, operational days and expenditure is set out in the table:
| Owned vessels | Charter vessels | ||||
| Number | Op. days | Number | Op. days | Expenditure (£ million) | |
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |