Road upgrades, repairs and costs correspondence with Scottish Greens: EIR release

Information requested

All correspondence held and minutes/notes from meetings between Fiona Hyslop and/or Transport Scotland and the Scottish Greens regarding roads upgrades/repairs/costs, from the last three months.

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.

Please see Annexes A and B to this response for a copy of some of the information you requested. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is 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.

Please see Annex C to this response which is an exert of correspondence received from multiple sources from the Scottish Green Party via their website: https://greens.scot/SaveLivesInBrodie. This exert was used internally to form a response.

An exception under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) applies to some of the information you have requested because it is internal communication relating to internal processes and procedures regarding providing responses. This exception 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 exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception.

We recognise that there is a public interest in disclosing information as part of open, transparent and accountable government. However, there is a greater public interest in protecting the internal processes of Transport Scotland in preparing a reply to the correspondence as these are a means to formally consider and reach a decision internally and ensures that Transport Scotland is able conduct this aspect of its business effectively. Disclosing this information would prejudice our ability to conduct the business of discussing the merits of proposals and the implications of decisions internally. This would not be in the public interest.

Please see Annex D to this response which is a copy of the final response issued in respect of the correspondence referred to as Annex C. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is 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.

Please see Annex E to this response which is a copy of invite to meeting regarding the A9 Dualling. An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to some of the information requested because it is 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.

Additional information is available online and can be accessed using the following links - Written question and answer: S6W-36424 | Scottish Parliament Website and Written question and answer: S6W-35242 | 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.

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 202500469077 - Information released - Annex A - E

File type

PDF

File size

1.9 MB