Pot-hole damage claims for 2013 to 2017: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00701
Date received: 7 March 2018
Date responded: 15 May 2018

Information requested

• The total number and total value of pot-hole damage claims on the following roads:

A1, A68, A6091/A7, A76, A78, A701, A702, A725, A726, A737, A82, A83, A84, A85, A86, A87, A828, A830, A835, A876, A887, A889, A898, A9, A90, A92, A972, A95, A96, A977, A985, A99.

• The total number of unsuccessful pot-hole damage claims:

A1, A68, A6091/A7, A76, A78, A701, A702, A725, A726, A737, A738, A751, A82, A83, A84, A85, A86, A87, A828, A830, A835, A876, A887, A889, A898, A9, A90, A92, A972, A95, A96, A977, A985, A99.

(for the years 2013-2017).

Response

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.

In response to the first part of your request, please see attached Annex A which contains details of the total number of pot-hole damage claims on the roads requested. Annex B of this request provides the number of unsuccessful pothole claims from 2013 to 2017.

The information contained within Annex A has been presented by financial year where Annex B had been presented by calendar year. Your request asked for information from "2013-2017" and the reason for the difference in the annexes formatting is due to how the information was requested from our agents. However as explained below, the period of your request is covered in this response.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have some of the information you have requested, in particular information for 2013 and up to 16 August 2014 for the A1, A68, A6091, A7 and the A702, Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.

The reasons why that exception applies is that under the 4th Generation (4G) Term Contract for the Management and Maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network, (Schedule 1, Part 4 Indemnities and Insurance, Section 12.2), our operating companies indemnify the Scottish Ministers in relation to claims.

The 4G contracts for the North West and South West units commenced on 1 April 2013 while the 4G contracts in the North East and South East units commenced on 16 August 2014. Therefore neither Transport Scotland nor the 4G operating companies hold claims information for their units during the 3rd Generation contract period (3G), which relates to the period covered by your question. This is also the case for figures for the A90 section of the Forth Road Bridge as this became the responsibility of Transport Scotland on June 2015.

This does not apply to the North East unit as BEAR Scotland was the operating company during 3G and 4G. Therefore the information provided in this response covers the available information on the routes requested relative to the timescales noted above.

We have also applied 10(4)(a) of the EIRs in relation to the total value of pot hole damage claims. The reasons why that exception applies is that under the 4th Generation Term Contract for the Management and Maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network, (Schedule 1, Part 4 Indemnities and Insurance, Section 12.2), our operating companies indemnify the Scottish Ministers in relation to claims, therefore we have no involvement in this process and do not hold the information requested.

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FOI-18-00701 - Annex A and B - pothole claims received and unsuccessful pothole claims.pdf

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