Publication - FOI/EIR release

A738 inspection, maintenance and accident records for Byres Road, Kilwinning: EIR release

Published: 3 January 2024
Part of: Public sector
FOI reference: 202300350544
Date received: 5 April 2023
Date responded: 26 April 2023

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

Information requested

Documentation for a period of 12 months prior to and including 22 December 2022 being :

Records of inspection for Byres Road, Kilwinning.
Maintenance Records, including records of independent contractors working in Byres Road, Kilwinning.
Statement of your Road Authorities Policy under the Code of Practice for Highway Maintenance Management 2005 or alternatively records of the minutes of highway authority or local authority meetings where maintenance or repair policy has been discussed or decided.
Records of complaints about the state of Byres Road, Kilwinning.
Records of other accidents which have occurred in Byres Road, Kilwinning.
Date stamp/electronic audit trail showing the date each record of inspection was created.

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Response

I have kept your numbering for ease of reference.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. Please see Annexes A and B to this response, inspection records between 21 December 2021 and 22 December 2022.
Please see Annex C to this response, a record of maintenance at this location within the timescale.
Our Operating Company, Amey complies with the inspection requirements for network condition and safety set out in Transport Scotland’s, Trunk Road Information Manual Section 3. Please see Annex D for a copy of this manual.
An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the ‘public interest test’, so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. Please see Annex E to this response, records of complaints about Byres Road, Kilwinning.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. This is because no accidents were recorded for this location during the timescale.
With reference to the request for date stamp/electronic audit trail showing the date each record of inspection was created, please be advised that all the information contained within the annexes complies with this request.

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.