BEAR Scotland compensation claims: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00829
Date received: 17 March 2018
Date responded: 17 April 2018

Information requested

The number of compensation claims made to BEAR by motorists whose vehicles have allegedly been damaged by potholes on trunk roads. The number of claims BEAR has paid out and the total amount from 1 March 2017 to 1 March 2018.

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

In response to your request, the number of compensation claims made to BEAR Scotland by motorists whose vehicles have allegedly been damaged by potholes on trunk roads is 1011.

The number of claims that have been successful is 175.

In relation to the final part of your request, 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 ElRs. 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), BEAR Scotland indemnify 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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