Road budgets: FOI release

Information requested

1) Please provide (a) the budget allocated for roads in general (including repairs, resurfacing and traffic lights and (b) the budget allocated specifically for pothole and road repairs for each of the following financial years: 2018/2019; 2019/2020; 2020/2021; 2021/2022 and 2022/2023.

2) For each of these annual budgets, please provide a figure for how much of the sum was funded by the council and how much is provided by central government funding.

3) For each of these annual budgets for both (a) roads in general and (b) potholes and similar road repairs, please provide a figure for how much was spent on pothole and road repairs.

4) For each of these annual budgets for both (a) roads in general and (b) potholes and similar road repairs, please provide a figure for how much was spent on road resurfacing.

5) For each of these annual budgets for both (a) roads in general and (b) potholes and similar road repairs, please provide a figure for how much was spent on non-road related spending and a brief summary of what this was – ie care.

6) For each of these annual budgets for both (a) roads in general and (b) potholes and similar road repairs, please provide a figure for how much money is or was left over by the end of the financial year.

Response

Some of the information you have requested is already available from existing public sources and the appropriate hyperlinks are provided below. Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Whilst our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exemptions under section 17 (information not held) and 33(1)(b) (substantial prejudice to commercial interests) of FOISA applies to that information.

The reasons why these exemptions apply are explained below. 

Transport Scotland is responsible for the maintenance and management of the trunk road network in Scotland on behalf of Scottish Ministers. The maintenance and operation of the non-trunk road network is the responsibility of Scottish Local Authorities and this includes the allocation of funding and expenditure on road repairs. Consequently, Transport Scotland holds no information on these matters and cannot, therefore, provide the information requested. The information referred to hereafter relates to trunk roads only. 

Answer 1a 

For trunk roads, the budget allocation information requested is already in the public domain as it is published by the Scottish Government as part of the Scottish Budget. The published information can be found here https://www.gov.scot/budget/, for each of the financial years requested. Road repairs are included within the Motorway and Trunk Road allocation under the following specific headings: 

• Network Strengthening and Structural Repairs: Repairs to bridges and other structures, planned carriageway resurfacing and renewal schemes. 
• Routine and Winter Maintenance: Routine inspection and repair of trunk roads (including reactive resurfacing, repair of potholes and safety critical defects), and renewal of ancillary assets (e.g. traffic signs, drainage, lighting assets).

Answer 1b 

There is no specific budget allocation for pothole defect repairs, the funds for which are drawn from the Routine and Winter Maintenance budget as required. 

Answer 2 

The funding for all trunk road repairs is provide by the Scottish Government. The funding for non-trunk road repairs is a matter for Scottish Local Authorities. 

Answer 3 

Road maintenance works are undertaken by our contractors under a term-maintenance contract, the current version of which is known as the Network Management Contract. The Contract requires regular inspections of the network to identify Category 1 defects, which are defined as those which present an immediate or imminent hazard to road users. Under this arrangement, the Scottish Government fully funds the repair of all Category 1 defects (including potholes) as and when they are detected. As such, there is no defined budget allocation for defect repairs, and are they funded, as required, from the Routine and Winter Maintenance budget allocation referred to in Response 1a. 

Prior to 2022/23, the 4th Generation Operating Company Contract was in place, under which arrangements, Category 1 defect repairs were funded from commercially sensitive monthly lump sums. We therefore cannot provide expenditure on Category 1 defect repairs prior to 2022/23. Expenditure in 2022/23 is provided in the Table below. 

Year	Answer 3: Expenditure on Category 1 defect repairs (including potholes)	Answer 4: Expenditure on road resurfacing
2018/19	-	£72,449,620
2019/20	-	£76,922,716
2020/21	-	£100,308,581
2021/22	-	£114,606,431
2022/23	£3,155,581.72	£110,717,323

Answer 4 

The value of expenditure from road resurfacing schemes in each the financial years requested is listed in the table above. 

Answer 5 

All expenditure referred to within Answer 1 is/was road related. 

Answer 6 

A comparison between budget and total expenditure is contained within the PAG Annual report, which is published by the Performance Audit Group and is available here https://pag.ohsee.co.uk/. The reports for 2018/19, 2019/20 and 2020/21 have already been published. The report for 2021/22 is due to be published in the coming weeks, and the 2022/23 report will be published later in this year. 

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