FOI Request - Pothole Repairs and Claims

Request 101003600767

1. How many potholes were reported to the Council between 01/01/2023 and 31/12/2023?

2. How many potholes were repaired by the Council between 01/01/2023 and 31/12/2023?

3. How many potholes were repaired by the Council more than once between 01/01/2023 and 31/12/2023?

4. How much has the Council spent on pothole repairs? Please give financial statistics for the period 01/01/23-31/12/2023?

5. How many claims has the Council received for vehicle damage due to potholes for the period 01/01/2023 – 31/12/2023?

6. How much compensation has your Authority paid out between 01/01/2023 – 31/12/2023 as a result of damage to vehicles caused by potholes?

7. How many claims has the Council received for personal injury due to potholes for the period 01/01/2023 – 31/12/2023?

8. How much compensation has your Authority paid out between 01/01/2023 – 31/12/2023 as a result of personal injury caused by potholes?

9. What is your road maintenance/pothole repair strategy for 2024/25?

10. What is the Council’s budget for potholes repairs for 2024/25?

11. What is the Council’s average repair cost per pothole?

12. Do the Council use external contractors to fix potholes, or do you have an inhouse Team?

13. How many full-time equivalent staff does Council currently employ to inspect it’s road network to identify and classify pot holes or potential highway defects?

14. If not outsourced, How many full-time equivalent staff does the Council currently employ to repair pot holes or highway defects?

15. Do the Council measure environmental impact or carbon footprint of potholes repairs?

16. How many miles of highway is the Council responsible for maintaining?

Response 22-07-2024

1. Information not held. Information that is not held falls under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held.

 The closest information that we have available is the number of customer enquiries received in 2023 which were categorised as being regarding either a carriageway defect or pothole. That number is  1572 but this will be different from the number of potholes reported as not all of these enquiries will be regarding potholes specifically, and some enquiries may be reporting several potholes or carriageway defects.

2. Information not held. Information that is not held falls under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held. 

The closest information that we have available is the number of works instructions for the repair of carriageway defects or potholes that were completed in 2023.  That number is 6649 but this will be different from the number of potholes as not all carriageway defects are potholes, and a single works instruction may cover the repair of several defects or potholes.

3. The requested information is not held, and to obtain it would require a manual duplicate check of the 6649 works instructions mentioned above. This would cost the Council in excess of £600 to produce. As such, the Council is unable to comply with this part of your request in accordance with section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 'excessive cost'.  

4. Our expenditure for the repair of carriageway defects and potholes in 2023 was £888,045.18

5. 62 claims.

6. £510.72

7. Nine

8. Nil

9. We do not have a pothole repair strategy but our ‘Road Asset Safety Inspections – Strategy’ document (see here) may contain the information you are looking for.

10. This information is already published online. This information is therefore exempt under section 25 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, information otherwise accessible. For ease of reference please find a link to the web page here: http://www.moray.gov.uk/downloads/file71196.pdf

11. Information not held. Information that is not held falls under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - Information not held. Costs are not recorded at an individual defect or instruction level for carriageway defects and pothole repairs, so this information is not held.  You may consider dividing the expenditure given for Q.4 by the number given in Q.2 but this would not give an accurate figure due to the limitations already mentioned above.

12. We have an internal Operations team who do the majority of our repairs, though some work is occasionally outsourced to other Contractors.

13. We have 4 no. Asset Inspectors, but they carry out other duties a well as identifying and recording potholes or other road defects.

14. We currently have a workforce of 65 no. roadworkers, but none of those are specifically employed to deal with potholes or other road defects – they carry out all types of road maintenance works.

15. No

16. 971.8 miles