Document 'Online at Inverurie – Dualling Feasibility and Appraisal' questions: EIR review

Thank you for your e-mail dated 31 July 2019 requesting an internal review of the response to your request for information, which was dealt with under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), pertaining to Document Title : Online at Inverurie – Dualling Feasibility and Appraisal (A96PEA-AMAR-GEN-CBRP-ZX-000001). As I was not involved in the handling of your original request, I have been asked to carry out this review by Transport Scotland’s Chief Executive. As such I have looked at this case afresh to establish whether the original response should be confirmed, with or without modifications as appropriate, or a fresh decision should be substituted.

I note your request for review stated:

There already exists two revisions of this document in circulation:

• P04 (dated 6th December 2018) which is the version uploaded to the Transport Scotland website on the 15th of April 2019, and
• P05 (dated July 2018) which was released under FOI/18/03589 on the 3rd of January 2019

It is very unclear which of these is the earlier revision as the revision numbers contradict the publication date, but at the very least one of these should have been provided under this FOI request.

This also undermines the statement “The Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested because it does not hold any prior revisions……”.

Later in the correspondence it is stated that “AmeyArup ensures compliance with the Arup Management System (AMS) - certificated to ISO 9001:2008, OHSAS 18001:2007 and ISO 14001:2004. Arup’s AMS combines quality, health and safety and environmental management into a single, integrated system which provides consistency to project delivery”

It is unbelievable that a company making this statement a) does not have a sufficiently robust document management system that maintains verifiable audit trail with archived document revisions, or indeed b) operates a process of deliberate and complete deletion of all records of prior document revisions.

Furthermore, it is incredible that Transport Scotland consider this standard of document management and record keeping to be acceptable or compliant practice. Transport Scotland are publicly accountable body, and it is expected that their decisions and the justifications are transparent, robust, verifiable and defensible.

I restate my request:

Document Title: Online at Inverurie – Dualling Feasibility and Appraisal (A96PEA-AMAR-GEN-CB-RP-ZX-000001)

Please provide all prior revisions of the above referenced document including drafts?

By way of clarification, I am requesting the release of revisions P01, P02 and P03. This request applies to documents retained by either Transport Scotland or AmeyArup.

In reference to the response to my second request:

No action required

In reference to the response to my third request:

In responding to my FOI request the author of the correspondence has completely evaded answering the questions.

I asked that Transport Scotland evidence that the document titled “Online at Inverurie – Dualling Feasibility and Appraisal” was subject to appropriate review, approval and authorisation by Amey Arup and Transport Scotland through all stages of revision and publication. Additionally, I stated an expectation that this validation would be the form of email correspondence and or date stamped Document Management System logs.

The response informed me:

• the document had been reviewed by Amey Arup, but provided no substantiation whatsoever.
• that AmeyArup have a quality management system.
• the document was reviewed by Transport Scotland’s A96 Dualling East of Huntly to Aberdeen Project Manager prior to publication on the Transport Scotland website, but again provided no substantiation

What it did not provide is verifiable audit trail or evidence:

• of review, approval and authorisation by AmeyArup.
• that AmeyArup followed process under their own quality management system
• of review, approval and authorisation by Transport Scotland

I restate my request:

Document Title: Online at Inverurie – Dualling Feasibility and Appraisal (A96PEA-AMAR-GEN-CB-RP-ZX-000001)

Please can you evidence that the above referenced document was subject to appropriate review, approval and authorisation by AmeyArup and Transport Scotland through all stages of revision and publication?

I expect this validation to take the form of email correspondence, date stamped Document Management System logs or in other date verifiable form.

By way of clarification, I am requesting this information in reference to revisions P01, P02, P03, P04 and P05. This request applies to information retained by either Transport Scotland or AmeyArup.