Bus and travel demand management report documentation: EIR release

Information requested

Part One

All documentation held by Transport Scotland, including correspondence sent and received, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings and analysis, about youth crime due to free bus travel, from the last three months (11 November 2024 to 10 February 2025).

Part Two

All documentation held by Transport Scotland, including correspondence sent and received, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings and analysis, about putting buses under public control, from the last three months (11 November 2024 to 10 February 2025).

Part Three

All documentation held by Transport Scotland, including correspondence sent and received, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings and analysis, about free bus travel for asylum seekers, from the last three months (11 November 2024 to 10 February 2025), including the risks register for this policy.

Part Four

All documentation held by Transport Scotland, including correspondence sent and received, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings and analysis, about the travel demand management report published on December 11 which included a per mile car tax, from the last three months (11 November 2024 to 10 February 2025).

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.

Part One

For part one of your request, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under the exception at regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs a public authority may refuse a request for information if it is ‘manifestly unreasonable’. The Scottish Information Commissioner’s guidance on the regulation 10(4)(b) exception at:

http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/Law/EIRs/EIRsExceptions.aspx says that there may “be instances where it is appropriate for the Commissioner to consider the proportionality of the burden on the public authority in terms of the costs and resources involved in dealing with a request when considering the application of this exception”.

In this case, we carried out specific searches using words such as “Youth Crime, ASB, Under 22 Free Bus Travel, and misbehaving” and found that the number of emails within the three month period requested would be too voluminous to review within the upper cost limit. The costs of locating and the resources involved in complying with the request would be disproportionate even with a 20 working days extension to the response deadline (under regulation 7 of the EIRs) would still not make the request manageable. For these reasons, we consider that your request is manifestly unreasonable and so we are refusing it under regulation 10(4)(b).

As the exception is conditional we have applied the ‘public interest test’. This means we have, in all the circumstances of this case, considered if the public interest in disclosing 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 youth crime due to free bus travel, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective use of public resources by not incurring excessive costs when complying with information requests.

You may however wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order to make it manageable. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s 'Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs' on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx.

Part Two

I have enclosed a copy of some of the information you have requested. We believe your request “putting buses under public control” relates to bus franchising and local authority run services, which are bus powers available to all local transport authorities in Scotland via the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.

Correspondence to and from the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee about the timescales and next steps for delivering the remaining legislation and guidance for bus franchising is available from the Scottish Parliament’s website - Statutory guidance for bus franchising | Scottish Parliament Website. 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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations 10(4)(d) (material in course of completion, etc.) and 10(4)(e) (internal communications) of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons for why the exceptions apply are explained in Annex A to this letter.

An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) also applies to this information request because the information requested contains personal data of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interest test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. The personal data have therefore been redacted from the attached copy.

The information requested is in Annex B.

Part Three

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations 10(4)(e) (internal communications) and 10(4)(d) (material in the course of completion) applies to that information. The reasons why those exceptions apply are explained in Annex A to this letter.

Information is available to view in the public domain:

Written question and answer: S6W-31972 | Scottish Parliament Website
Written question and answer: S6W-31990 | Scottish Parliament Website

There is no risk register for this subject as it is not confirmed policy, pending allocation of funding following the outcome of the budget vote containing this subject.

Part Four

In response to part 4 of your request, I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exceptions under regulations 10(4)(e) (internal communications) and Regulation 11(2) Personal Data of the EIRs applies to that information. The reasons for why the exceptions apply are explained in Annex A to this letter.

The information requested is in Annex C.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

EIR 202500452179 - Information released - Annex A, B and C

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1.3 MB