Follow up to FOI/18/02328 requesting further information about inspection reports and dates of pothole repair: EIR release

Thank you for your request dated 8 November, which was a request for a review of FOI/18/02328. Within your review request, you asked for further information which we are treating as a new request under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs).

You asked:

“I would like further and better particulars in relation to my request and in particular a copy of the SCANNER report dated 26 April 2017.

Please provide the relevant extracts (together with layman interpretation) from the 2017 and 2018 annual walked inspection reports covering the specific pothole location together with the date of those reports and identify if any of the Safety Inspections and Safety Patrols had noticed the pothole as it should have been clearly visible to skilled highway experts following its roadmarking on 24 September 2017.”

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 your request for further information, please refer to Annex A to C which is detailed SCANNER information including Rutting and Texture surveys undertaken. For your information the location of the section codes provided are;

11526/31 – Start of the climbing lane section to start of dual carriageway.

11526/58 – Drummore Roundabout to end of the dual carriageway.

Annex D is the detailed annual inspection of the road which has been updated to reflect the section codes for the location you confirmed within your review request. Information on how these inspections are undertaken was provided to you in response FOI/18/02328.

Your request asks for us to interpret the information provided to you. I am afraid that we cannot do this as (a) the Regulations surrounding EIR requests relate to the provision of information, not its interpretation and (b) any interpretation by us could be used in legal cases, exposing Scottish Ministers and individual officers to risk. Therefore, you may wish to discuss the records with your advisors who are assisting you with your claim case.