Procurement of trains for the ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper fleet information: EIR release

Information requested

• All briefings given to the Cabinet Secretary for Transport regarding the procurement of future trains for the ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper fleet since 1 January 2025.
• All correspondence between Civil Servants, Transport Scotland, Scottish Rail Holdings, ScotRail and the Caledonian sleeper concerning the procurement of future trains for the ScotRail and Caledonian sleeper fleet since 1 January 2025.
• A list of all internal and external meetings concerning the ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper fleet with dates attached since 1 January 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.

For point 1 of your request, the Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. This is a formal notice under Regulation 10(4)(a) of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 which allows public authorities to refuse to make environmental information available if they don't hold the information.

For point 2 of your request, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, we are not able to provide information you requested as we deem your request manifestly unreasonable.

Exception under the Regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs: Manifestly unreasonable requests, allows a Scottish public authority to refuse to disclose environmental information if the request for information is manifestly unreasonable.

In this case, Scottish Government cannot provide the information you have requested, as we hold a large volume of information which could fall in the scope of your request. With this in mind, he time required to examine all information held on the Scottish Government’s data base and the time required to prepare the information for release, would impose a significant burden on the financial and human resources of the Scottish Government.

We note that you have already reduced the time frame for your request. To enable us to provide the information sought, the time frame would need to be further reduced or alternatively, a particular fleet would need to be specified in order to make this request manageable. Furthermore, you may wish to specify correspondence between particular parties rather than all of those listed in the request.

With this in mind, we consider your request to be manifestly unreasonable under Regulation 10(4)(b) of the EIRs and cannot offer the information you have requested.

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 disclosing the information related to procurement of new trains, this is outweighed by the public interest in ensuring the efficient and effective use of public resources.

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.

For point 3 of your request, please find Annex A which is attached to this letter for a list of internal and external meetings concerning ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper fleet from 1st January 2025.

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 202500454500 - Information released - Annex A

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