Maven scope test needs to resolve depdencies

I have a dependency in my pom with scope test but I still get following build failure:

[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 0.278 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2016-04-19T22:11:59+02:00
[INFO] Final Memory: 5M/15M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal on project my-module: Could not resolve dependencies for project com.mycompany.app:my-module:jar:1: Failure to find group-a:artifact-b:jar:tests:1.0 in http://ift.tt/1pDkooA was cached in the local repository, resolution will not be reattempted until the update interval of central has elapsed or updates are forced -> [Help 1]0 

I use following pom:

<project>
 <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
 <groupId>com.mycompany.app</groupId>
 <artifactId>my-module</artifactId>
 <version>1</version>
 <dependencies>
   <dependency>
     <groupId>group-a</groupId>
     <artifactId>artifact-b</artifactId>
     <version>1.0</version>
     <scope>test</scope>
  </dependency>
 </dependencies>
</project>

1. Is this intended behavior of maven?
2. Are there any mitigations to ignore the dependency during package/install/deploy builds?

Any help is appreciated