Methods and procedures manual for the Scottish pelagic industry data collection programme

Data collection onboard vessels is a key part of the Scottish Pelagic Fishermen’s
Association (SPFA) Data Collection Strategy (Mackinson, 2019). The purpose of this manual
is to provide a guide to the data collection programme, together with full documentation
of the methods, protocols and procedures that are in use at the time of publication. The
document will be reviewed and updated annually, or before if required.
Please refer to the ICES Commercial Catch Sampling Summary (Appendix 13) for a highlevel summary of the programme with information provided using standard terminology,
typically adopted within ICES to describe fisheries catch sampling programmes.
Information on the industry sampling programme has been submitted to the ICES Data
Profiling Tool to aid in evaluating completeness of the data flow.