FOI/19/01609 · FOI/EIR · partially withheld
Transport Scotland - complaints of roads in Inverclyde: EIR release
Information requested
You asked for “In each of the last five years, how many complaints has Transport Scotland received about roads in Inverclyde it is responsible for, for example the A8 and the A78; what was the nature of the complaints, ie potholes, traffic light issues etc; and what action was taken, if any, to remedy the complaints? Could you please break the figures down per year?”
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.
The following tables provide the number of complaints received by our Operating Company for the South West Unit for the A8 and A78 from 2014 – 2019.
A8
Year Number of complaints 2014 30 2015 37 2016 37 2017 25 2018 88 2019 to date 56 Total 2014 - 2019 273
A78
Year Number of complaints 2014 32 2015 70 2016 59 2017 74 2018 79 2019 to date 45 Total 2014 - 2019 359
The additional information about the nature of the complaint and actions taken are in the enclosed CD. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because an exception(s) under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs applies to that information. This is 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.
Due to the size of the files we are unable to upload the documents referred to above. If you wish to consider, please contact us at the address below and we will be happy to provide.
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.
Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Enquiry Unit Email: ceu@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrews House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
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. This is 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.
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