Junction 4 and 5 of M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project: EIR release

Information requested

The AMEY LG Ltd “Safety Inspection” including Safety Report / Video Survey / Photographic evidence for the M74 Northbound Jct 4 & 5 carried out on both Tuesday 26th November 2019 and Tuesday 3rd December 2019.

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.

Scottish Roads Partnership (SRP) is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the M74 northbound between junctions 4 and 5 on behalf of Transport Scotland. SRP has provided the safety inspection reports for the safety inspections carried out on 26 November and 3 December 2019 on the M74 northbound between junctions 4 and 5. A copy of this report can be found in Annex A.
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Transport Scotland does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.
Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have, such as access to video survey or photographic evidence for the M74 northbound between junctions 4 and 5 during the safety inspections on 26 November 2019 and 3 December 2019.
It may be helpful to explain that our contractor is not required to gather video survey or photographic evidence for safety inspections where no defects are identified. Further information can be found in the contract documents which are available online at the following link:
https://www.transport.gov.scot/projects/m8-m73-m74-motorway-improvements/documentlibrary/m8-m73-m74-contract-documentation/

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. While we recognise there may be some public interest in a video survey and/or photographic evidence of the safety inspection carried out by SRP, 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.

FOI-20-00065 Annex A

File type

9 page PDF

File size

71.3 kB