Road maintenance spend through each of the three operating companies: EIR release

Information requested

Could you please provide the spending made on road maintenance made through each of the three operating companies working under the 4th Generation Term Contract for Management and Maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network.

• Bear Scotland – for the NW and NE of Scotland 
• Scotland Transerv – for the SW Scotland 
• Amey – for the SE of Scotland and the FBOC. 

Can you also provide this information on an annual basis up to the latest period available for each company please?

Can you also provide the same information for the spending through the three Design Build Finance and Operate (DBFO) Contracts under which the companies maintain the M80, M77 and M74.

Can you also provide this information on an annual basis up to the latest period available please? 

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

The following table provides you with the spending made on road maintenance made through each of the three operating companies working under the 4th Generation Term Contract for Management and Maintenance of the Scottish Trunk Road Network and also our DBFO contracts.

Operating Company / DBFO	Area	2013/2014	2014/2015	2015/2016	2016/2017	2017/2018	2018/2019
Bear Scotland	NW	44,088,487	47,421,959	42,178,448	52,836,162	54,440,461	29,652,434
	NE	31,741,872	27,502,442	24,634,141	28,755,176	29,435,003	13,248,294
Scotland Transerv	SW	38,144,237	39,732,669	37,519,307	47,960,432	55,905,269	26,300,448
Amey	SE	27,688,028	24,611,644	24,008,268	32,913,768	33,807,179	15,798,755
	FBOC		445,707	17,236,529	16,840,541	29,470,226	11,522,359
Autolink	M74	£19,558,000	£13,830,000	£14,064,000	£12,442,000	£12,974,000	£7,900,000
Connect	M77		£4,085,000	£3,710,000	£2,734,000	£2,825,000	£3,202,000
HMG	M80	£2,705,000	£2,213,000	£2,566,000	£2,329,000	£2,403,000	£2,528,000

 

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 EIRs – information not held. Due to the nature of the Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO) contract, the spend made on road maintenance cannot be disaggregated from the monthly payment which is based on availability of the roads connected with the project.  For further information on the payment mechanism for the M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project you can view the contract documents at the following link: https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/8153/m8m73m74-motorway-improvements-contract-schedule-6-web-version.pdf  

 This exception 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 exception.  We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.  While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the spending value on road maintenance, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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.