Ardrossan harbour task force meetings: EIR release

Information requested

1. What were the reasons behind the Ardrossan harbour task force minutes from June 2022 not being published online until December?
2. Was the next meeting held in December like planned? If not, why not and when has it been rescheduled to?
3. When are the minutes due to be published and if possible could the minutes be released through this FOI?
4. How much has been spent by Transport Scotland on these meetings so far? Breakdown of this cost.

Response

The answer to your question is as follows:

1. The note of the Task Force meeting held on 28 June 2022 was published in December following approval by all parties – see link Meeting papers - 28 June 2022 - Ardrossan Harbour Taskforce | Transport Scotland.
2. No Task Force meeting was held in December. The latest Task Force meeting was held on 23 January 2023 in Arran.
3. The notes of meeting for the next Task Force meeting will be published on the Transport Scotland website after the 23 January 2023 meeting, when agreed by all parties.
4. Unfortunately we do not record TS staff time/costs by project task and therefore do not hold the information to answer this question.

Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs allows public authorities to refuse to make environmental information available if they don’t hold the information when the request is received.

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.

About FOI

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.