Transport Scotland A90/A937 upgrade correspondence: EIR release

Information requested

“Regarding Transport Scotland plans to upgrade the A90/A937 south junction at Laurencekirk, may I ask:

1/ for a copy of correspondence between Aberdeenshire Council and Scottish Ministers/Transport Scotland regarding the upgrade since January 1 2025; both sent and received

2/ All correspondence received by or communicated from any of the Scottish Ministers, or their special advisors, mentioning "Laurencekirk junction" or "A90 upgrade" since January 1 2025. This includes all forms of communication available, not limited to but including, email, text messages , whatsapp or conventional mail.”

In response to my subsequent email of 18 September 2025 in which I asked whether your request should be focused on the prospective upgrade of the junction at Laurencekirk, as requested in your previous FOI request and not the upgrade of the A90 in general you confirmed that:

“Perhaps: "the upgrade of the Laurencekirk south junction with the A90" would be a better wording”.

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 find enclosed the requested information within Annexes A, B & C to this letter. Annexes A & B contain emails and Ministerial Correspondence. Annex C contains extracts from the background notes to Parliamentary Questions S6W-32857, S6W-33166 & S6O-04460.

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 as all answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website. The search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

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 Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1998. 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 information withheld in the disclosed documents are personal details, addresses and signatures.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested and therefore an exception under regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs applies. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. In this case the Scottish Government does not hold any text or WhatsApp messages relating to Laurencekirk south junction.

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. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in the requested information, clearly, we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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 between Scottish Government Ministers and their officials.

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 some public interest in release as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, there is a greater public interest in high quality policy and decision-making, and in the properly considered implementation and development of policies and decisions. This means that Ministers and officials need to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications. Their candour in doing so will be affected by their assessment of whether discussions on available options will be disclosed in the near future, when it may undermine or constrain the Government’s view on that issue while it is still under discussion and development, which in turn will undermine the quality of the decision making process.

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 202500485001 - Information released - Annex A - C

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