Publication - FOI/EIR release

Accidents on Transport Scotland projects: EIR release

Published: 21 March 2018
Topic: Public sector, Transport

Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004

FOI reference: FOI/18/00480
Date received: 18 January 2018
Date responded: 12 March 2018

Information requested

A Freedom of Information request relating to accidents on Transport Scotland projects.

Firstly, How many workers have been injured in accidents on the following projects?

And secondly, how many near misses (incidents which were very close to accidents) have been recorded on the following projects?

The Transport Scotland projects in question are:

1. The Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie to Tipperty

2. The Forth Replacement Crossing

3. A9 dualling Perth and Inverness

4. A96 dualling Inverness to Aberdeen

5. M8, M73 and M74 Motorway Improvements

I want to know how many workers have been involved in accidents in each project from the period of the commencement of each project to the end of construction of each project – or, if the projects have not completed construction, until the receipt of this email.

Please break down your answer by month for each project, and provide a total for each incident. And if possible, please provide me with details of each injury.

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

Information relating to the numbers of workers injured in accidents and the number of near misses on the projects noted above can be found attached.

For the A96 Dualling: Inverness to Aberdeen Project, one incident occurred on 11 May 2016 whereby a Geosonic worker injured fell from a HGV.

Totals can be found in the table below:

Project	Number of Workers injured in Accidents/Incidents	Number of Near Misses
AWPR/B-T Project	158	440
Queensferry Crossing	503*	435
A9 Dualling: Perth to Inverness Project	29	17
A96 Dualling: Inverness to Aberdeen Project	1	0
M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project	118	137

*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. Transport Scotland does not have the information you have requested as the number of incidents on the Queensferry Crossing are reported to Transport Scotland rather than the number of workers injured.

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 number of workers injured on projects, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

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