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Publication - FOI/EIR release

Costs incurred in compensation claims regarding potholes: EIR release

Published
7 February 2019
Part of
Public sector, Transport
FOI reference
FOI/19/00111
Date received
11 January 2019
Date responded
6 February 2019

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

Information requested

 
1.   How much money overall has been paid out by Transport Scotland in compensation as a result of claims (whether or not liability was accepted) relating to potholes involving (a) cyclists and (b) motorists in each of the last five financial years: 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18?  Please provide the responses for each year separately.
 
2.   How many individual (a) cyclists and (b) motorists have received compensation as a result of legal claims relating to potholes in each of the last five financial years: 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18? Please provide the responses for each year separately.
 
3.   What is Transport Scotland’s total expenditure on legal costs defending and settling legal claims, including both their own and the Claimants’ legal costs, for pothole related claims in each of the last five financial years: 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18?
 
 

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 relation to question 1 and 3, we do not have the information you have requested.  Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.  The reason why that exception applies is that our Operating Companies and DBFO Consessionaries indemnify Scottish Ministers in relation to claims, therefore we have no involvement in this process and do not hold the information requested. 
 
Similarly for question 2, we have applied the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs as were are not able to provide individual figures for cyclists and motorists. This is due to the manner in which the information is stored in our internal systems as they do not distinguish the type of claimaint.
 
We can however, provide the total amount of claimaints. Most of the information you have requested is available from https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-18-03094/. Under regulation 6(1)(b) of the EIRs, we do not have to give you information which is already publicly available and easily accessible to you in another form or format.  
 
The total amount of claims from October 2018 to 11 December 2018 is 29.

 

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.

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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