Damaged roads infrastructure insurance monies recovered: EIR release

Information requested

1. Does Transport Scotland, or the Scottish Government, recover any monies from the insurance industry relating to motor vehicles that have damaged roads infrastructure such as railings, lampposts, signs, etc. If so, what is the total value of the monies recovered in the last year.
2. Also, is there an estimate of the total annual value of such damaged infrastructure?

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.

1.  Schedule 4 Part 4 of Transport Scotland’s Operating Company Contracts sets out the circumstances in which the operating company are required to pursue the recovery of monies  relating to vehicles which have damaged trunk roads infrastructure.  All incidents out with the remit of the operating company contracts are processed by Transport Scotland.   The links to these contracts can be found below: 

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35776/fboc.pdf

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35900/sw-combi.pdf

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35897/se-combined.pdf

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35896/ne-combined.pdf

https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/35899/nw-combi.pdf

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.  If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.
The total value recovered by Transport Scotland in the last financial year (2018/19) for all units of our trunk road network is £379,434.75.

2.  While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance 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 it is not possible to estimate for accidents or incidents which may occur in the future.

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.