FOI/202600501017 · FOI/EIR · clarification
Correspondence regarding the A96 Nairn bypass: EIR release
Information requested
All documentation held by the Scottish Government, including minutes/notes from meetings, correspondence sent and received (including internal), briefings, analysis, advice, about the A96 Nairn bypass, 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.
In response to your request above, we contacted you by email on 15 January 2026 and again on 21 January 2026, and followed up with a telephone call on 22 January 2026 to seek clarification in order to narrow the scope of your request. As we did not receive a response, we are interpreting your request as relating to correspondence, submissions, and internal communications provided to the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop MSP as a way to make the request manageable due to the Nairn Bypass being a wide topic.
Please refer to Annex A which contains correspondence sent/received by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop MSP relating to the A96 Dualling Inverness to Nairn (including Nairn Bypass) from the period from 11 October 2025 to 11 January 2026.
Please refer to Annex B which contains extracts of submissions/internal communications sent/received by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop MSP relating to the A96 Dualling Inverness to Nairn (including Nairn Bypass) from the period from 11 October 2025 to 11 January 2026.
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. A previous EIR covers part of your request from the 11 October 2025 to the 14 October 2025. This can be found using the following link: Transport Scotland A96 dualling documentation: EIR release - gov.scot
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. This exception has been applied to Annexes A and B contained within this response.
We are also unable to provide some of the information requested because of an exception under regulation 10(4)(e) of the EIRs (internal communications) which applies to some of the information requested because it is internal communication between Transport Scotland / Scottish Government officials and Scottish Ministers regarding the A96 Inverness to Nairn (including Nairn Bypass).
This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. This means we have taken account of all the circumstances of the case and considered whether, on balance, disclosing the information is outweighed by the public good to be had by applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of applying the exception and I have outlined the specific reasons for this below.
We do recognise that there is some public interest in releasing this information as part of open, transparent and accountable government, and to inform public debate. However, this is outweighed by the ability for Scottish Government, its Ministers and officials to be able to discuss, debate and deliver high quality policy including the decision-making processes in a private thinking space and ensuring it can be conducted in an environment which does not hamper this process. In order to do so they must be able to properly discuss, debate and exchange views on how implementing policy will be undertaken and part of this is the development of briefing material, the deliberations that have taken place and the decisions made until policy is finalised. Ministers and officials need to be able to consider all available options and to debate those rigorously, to fully understand their possible implications and therefore it would not be appropriate to release information ahead of that process concluding. If released would otherwise impact on effective conduct of public affairs.
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.
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 can be found using the following link: Transport Scotland A96 dualling documentation: EIR release - gov.scot 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.