Publication - FOI/EIR release

A85: road maintenance, repairs and inspections: EIR release

Published: 26 July 2018
Topic: Public sector, Transport

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

FOI reference: FOI/18/01831
Date received: 4 July 2018
Date responded: 25 July 2018

Information requested

1. We wish to request access to access to documentation pertaining to all maintenance, repair and inspection works performed by BEAR Scotland on the A85 road at the area known as Fowlis Wester to Gilmerton and on the land bordering on The Abercairny Estate.

2. We also wish to request access to all documentation held and correspondence issued/received by BEAR Scotland in relation to a road traffic accident which occurred on the aforementioned section of road on the evening of Tuesday 6 June 2017 and involving a motorist by the name of Scott Finnie or Pankhurst.

To which you clarified on the 5 July that the date range of your request was from June 2015 until June 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.

I have numbered our response for ease of reference.

In response to question 1, please refer to Annex A which is a report on the woodland area known as Fowlis Wester to Gilmerton which was prepared by Bear Scotland. Annex B is the inspection defect report for the timeframe requested.

In response to question 2, please refer to Annex C which is an extract from the daily call log for 6/6/2017 and Annex D is the accident report for this incident.

In relation to Annex D, an exception under regulation 11(1) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is personal information of which you are the data subject, and so it is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). 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.

Exception 10(5)(a) of the EIR's (Health and Safety) also applies to this Annex as disclosure of personal information would, or would likely to endanger the physical or mental health or safety of an individual.

Annex E which contains all documentation held and correspondence issued/received by BEAR Scotland in relation to a road traffic accident which occurred on the aforementioned section of road on the evening of Tuesday 6 June 2017.

We have also applied an exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) to Annex E.

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