FOI/202200291216 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Communications between Transport Scotland and Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL): EIR release
Information requested
All briefings, correspondence, emails, letters, notes of meetings and telephone conversations, between 25 September 2015 and 10 October 2015 between Transport Scotland officials and CMAL officials regarding the Builders Refund Guarantee in relation to the contracts for vessels 801 and 802.
Response
Information within scope of your request is attached in Annex A. For context the following in addition to the information provided in Annex A may be helpful. The contract was awarded by CMAL in its capacity as procuring authority following a robust procurement process. Transport Scotland and CMAL ensured that Ministers were informed of, and accepting of, the risks associated with this contract. 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. Reasons for not providing information are detailed in Annex B About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Detected exemption language
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.