Scotland's Rail reform: FOI release

Information requested

1. Can you provide the transport scotland response to the DFT consultation “A railway fit for Britains future” ?

2. How many FTE staff are working on reform currently and job titles?

3. Any correspondence between Transport Scotland and GBRTT/Shadow GBR?

4. Any correspondence between Bill Reeve and Andrew Haines on reform? 

Response

We wrote to you to clarify a timeframe for point 3. You responded by asking us to apply the following timeframe to points 3 and 4 above: 30/10/24 - 30/04/25.

Point 1:

As is standard practice, Transport Scotland did not provide a response to the DfT consultation given that Scottish Ministers are funders and specifiers of Scotland’s Railway and as such it is not typical that Transport Scotland would provide a response as a stakeholder.

Point 2:

There are 3 full-time equivalent staff members working on rail reform, including a Senior Policy Manager and a Policy Officer. The Director of Rail at Transport Scotland also supports this work stream.

While we aim to provide information wherever possible, we are not able to provide you with all job titles, as disclosing this could identify the individuals. Section 38(1)(b) – personal data of a third party, applies to this information, which is explained below.

Point 3 and 4:

Please find the information you have requested in Annex A, attached to this letter.

While we aim to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, some of the information has been redacted under the following FOISA exemption.

Section 38(1)(b) – personal data of a third party

An exemption under section 38(1)(b) of FOISA (personal information) applies to [a small amount of the information requested because it is personal data of a third party, i.e some names of junior grade civil servants and stakeholders attending meetings 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 exemption 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 exemption.

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.

FOI 202400464964 - Information Released - Annex A

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