EIR/202400404682 · FOI/EIR · not held
Removal of litter, refuse and detritus from roads: EIR release
Information requested
In the following calendar years, how many bags (or KGs) of litter, refuse and detritus was removed from highways for which you are responsible across Scotland.
2021 2022 2023
In the following calendar years, how much did you spend (inc staff costs) on litter picking along the strategic road network in Scotland
2021 2022 2023 £ £ £
3. All data held regarding litter complaints from the 1st January 2020 – 31st December 2023.
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.
Response to your request
I have kept your numbering for ease of reference.
1. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have. We do not have some of the information you have requested because figures showing the amount of litter picked for North East are not available for 2021, as this was within the previous contract and litter picking was part of the cyclic maintenance and not recorded separately and, Transport Scotland is only responsible for litter picking on Special Roads and motorways, and there are none of these in the North West Unit.
Please see table below showing details of amount of litter removed for the Trunk Road Network.
amount of litter 2021 2022 2023 NE No information held prior to August 2022 3200 kg (from August 2022 9600 kg NW No information held SE 5068 bags 8031 bags 7603 bags SW 2806 bags 2489 bags 5157 bags M80 1676 bags 1417 bags 2028 bags M8 21,190 kg 18,065 kg 32,360 kg AWPR 1105 bags 874 bags 1115 bags M74 3086 bags 2129 bags 2553 bags M77 894 bags 695 bags 1027 bags
2. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have. We do not have the information you have requested because the removal of litter is not charged separately, rather the cost is included in the monthly lump sums paid by Transport Scotland to their Operating Companies for a range of services.
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 information about the removal of dead animals from the trunk road network, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.
3. 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 A to this response, complaints received specifically about litter on the Trunk Road Network.
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. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have.