A9 Dualling project, safety incidents report: EIR release
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
FOI reference: FOI/18/00245
Date received: 22 January 2018
Date responded: 22 February 2018
Information requested
Information under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) relating to the A9 Dualling project. Specifically, you asked for:
How many safety incidents have taken place on the project since work began in September 2015, to the present day. While I do not expect the names of the people involved to be released, it would be useful to have the date of each incident, who it involved (their job title) and a brief description of what happened.
Response
The information you have requested falls within the definition of 'environmental information' in regulation 2(1) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (the EIRs), and so we are required to deal with it under those Regulations. An exemption under section 39(2) of FOISA applies to this information which, in effect, means we do not have to consider a request under FOISA if we are dealing with it under the EIRs. As the exemption is conditional we have applied the 'public interest test'. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the exemption. It seems to us there is no public interest in dealing with this request under FOISA as well as the EIRs but there is a public interest in not duplicating work unnecessarily. Therefore, we have concluded that the public interest favours maintaining the exemption. This is largely a technical point – the fact that we are dealing with your request under the EIRs rather than FOISA has no practical impact on our decision in relation to your request.
Turning to the actual information you have requested, this is contained within the separate chart which accompanies this letter.
About FOI
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Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
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