New Bus For London contracts

The request was partially successful.

Dear Transport for London,

Under the freedom of information act I would like to kindly request digital copies of all contracts that relate to the New Bus for London made between Transport for London and 3rd parties (e.g. Wrightbus, Arriva and Metroline). I would expect this to include (but not necessarily be limited to) contracts regarding the supply & purchase of the buses from Wrightbus and the maintenance and management contracts between tfl and the Arriva/Metroline

Yours faithfully,

Andrew Hardy

FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Hardy

 

Our Ref:         FOI-0644-1314

 

Thank you for your e-mail received on 9 July 2013 asking for information
about New Bus for London contracts.

 

Your request will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy. 

 

A response will be provided to you by 7 August 2013.

 

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
feel free to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

 

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FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Hardy

 

Our Ref:         FOI-0644-1314

 

Thank you for your e-mail received on 9 July 2013 asking for information
about New Bus for London contracts.

 

Your request is being considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and TfL’s information access policy.
I can confirm TfL does hold the information you require.

 

However, in accordance with Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act
this letter is a refusal notice as TfL is still considering whether a
qualified exemption applies to the requested information and has not yet
reached a conclusion. The exemption under consideration is section 43 –
Commercial Interests. It is estimated that a decision will be reached by 5
September 2013 and I will write again to inform you of that decision.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

 

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Dear Gemma,

I have today received an alert from whatdotheyknow.com advising me that this request is now overdue. The guidance at whatdotheyknow.com advises that FoI officers do a lot of hard work in retrieving information and so I very much appreciate any correspondence advising me of the delay.

If you had some of the requested contracts and were experiencing difficulty in obtaining others, I would have asked for a partial response and would be happy to wait for the remainder (even if this were to fall outside the statutory 20 days) as, like I say, I understand there is a lot of hard work involved.

However, I am somewhat annoyed that you are confirming you have all the information requested but have simply not done the last step of sending it through within the required timescales. I do not accept that you have given a refusal notice in accordance with section 17 as a qualified exemption has to be established before such a refusal notice can be given. Furthermore, if this were a refusal, it makes no sense for you to advise you hope to respond again at a later date.

Even if my requested information were exempt, this would mean that you were not obligated to release it. This is not equivalent to being obligated not to release it. Effectively, you have advised that you have my information but are delayed in releasing it because you are trying to decide if you have an excuse not to do so. This hardly seems an acceptable position to take and so I would ask that you send the requested information through promptly allowing the delay past the original 7th August to be minimal.

I would also like to note that I have note received the referenced attached sheet regarding a right to appeal.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Hardy

FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Hardy

 

Our Ref:         FOI-0644-1314

 

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your FOI request.

 

I think it might be helpful if I clarified the position, with regard to
your request, as I do not want to give the impression that we are
categorically refusing to provide you with the information you have
requested. As you may be aware, under section 10(3)(b) and 17(2) of the
FOI Act a public authority may lawfully extend the time by which a
response must be issued where it is considering the application of a
qualified exemption under the FOI Act. However, even where this is the
case, section 17(1) of the Act requires that a public authority must still
issue a notice which explains that an exemption is being considered, which
one and why, as well as providing an estimate of the date by which a
decision is expected. This notice is generally called a refusal notice,
though I appreciate that this term may give the impression that a decision
has already been reached. However, I can assure you that this is not the
case.

 

As you have requested several contracts to do with the New Bus for London
these need to be reviewed for any information that could potentially
prejudice either TfL’s commercial interests or that of our partners,
information which would be exempt under section 43 of the Act. I hope you
will appreciate that this does require us to assess each contract and all
of its appendices in turn. There are three contracts, one of which is
almost 300 pages in length, so it can be a time consuming process.

 

I understand that you would like this information as soon as possible and
I will endeavour to provide you with a response as soon as I am able to.

 

I have attached the right of appeal information, I apologise for not
having included it in my previous response. If you would like us to
conduct an internal review into the handling of your request please let me
know.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

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Dear Gemma,

Thank you very much for your prompt response to my correspondence giving details of the FoI act. I have checked section 10(3)(b) of the FoI act which advised that the 20 day rule may not apply "In respect of any information which is exempt information" (section 2(2) of the FoI act). It has not yet been established that this is exempt information so I don't feel section 10(3)(b) can apply in this instance.

Despite this, I of course understand that there is a considerable amount of work in assessing these contracts and I did not realise how large these contracts would be. I very much appreciate your time in doing this and I look forward to September when I hope to read these contracts and I believe it to be in the public interest for them to be released.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Hardy

FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

E-mail 2.

 

From: FOI
Sent: 13 September 2013 09:22
To: '[FOI #168205 email]'
Subject: FOI Request - New Bus for London Contracts

 

Dear Mr Hardy

 

Our Ref:         FOI-0644-1314

 

Thank you for your e-mail received on 9 July 2013 asking for information
about New Bus for London contracts. Please accept my apologies for the
delay in my response.

 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can
confirm we do hold the information you require.

 

Please find attached the current Wrightbus contract, Heatherwick contract,
and the lease Agreement which represents the form of lease for both
Metroline Travel and Arriva London North who operate our two New Bus for
London routes. Due to the size of the files I will send three separate
e-mails.

 

Please note that Schedules 4 and 9 of the Lease Agreement have not been
included as these documents are included in the Wrightbus Contract as
Schedule 22 and Schedule 4 respectively. Schedule 18 refers to operators’
logos which we have not yet received.

 

In accordance with the FOI Act, we are not obliged to supply some of the
information contained in the Wrightbus contract as it is subject to a
statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section
43(2), Commercial Interests.

 

In this instance the exemption has been applied as disclosure of the
information you have requested in relation to some of the design
specifications, price summary, and payment schedules included in the
contract with Wrightbus would, or would be likely to, prejudice Wrightbus’
commercial interests. There are on-going negotiations with some of
Wrightbus’s suppliers regarding some of the parts used in the manufacture
of the New Bus for London that could be affected if this information was
disclosed. The disclosure of price summaries and payment schedules could
influence negotiations with customers who have contracts with Wrightbus.

 

The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public
interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. We
recognise the need for openness and transparency by public authorities but
in this instance the public interest in ensuring that we are able to
obtain the best value for public money with regards to the service
provided to secure this contract, outweighs the general public interest in
increasing transparency of TfL’s processes.

 

In addition, please note that in accordance with TfL’s obligations under
the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) any personal data has been removed, as
required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of
this personal data would be a breach of the DPA, specifically the first
principle of the DPA which requires all processing of personal data to be
fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal
information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed
and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions of Schedule 2 of the Data
Protection Act which would make the processing ‘fair’.

 

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, please feel free to contact me.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

 

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FOI, Transport for London

7 Attachments

Dear Mr Hardy

 

Our Ref:         FOI-0644-1314

 

Thank you for your e-mail received on 9 July 2013 asking for information
about New Bus for London contracts. Please accept my apologies for the
delay in my response.

 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can
confirm we do hold the information you require.

 

Please find attached the current Wrightbus contract, Heatherwick contract,
and the lease Agreement which represents the form of lease for both
Metroline Travel and Arriva London North who operate our two New Bus for
London routes. Due to the size of the files I will send three separate
e-mails.

 

Please note that Schedules 4 and 9 of the Lease Agreement have not been
included as these documents are included in the Wrightbus Contract as
Schedule 22 and Schedule 4 respectively. Schedule 18 refers to operators’
logos which we have not yet received.

 

In accordance with the FOI Act, we are not obliged to supply some of the
information contained in the Wrightbus contract as it is subject to a
statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section
43(2), Commercial Interests.

 

In this instance the exemption has been applied as disclosure of the
information you have requested in relation to some of the design
specifications, price summary, and payment schedules included in the
contract with Wrightbus would, or would be likely to, prejudice Wrightbus’
commercial interests. There are on-going negotiations with some of
Wrightbus’s suppliers regarding some of the parts used in the manufacture
of the New Bus for London that could be affected if this information was
disclosed. The disclosure of price summaries and payment schedules could
influence negotiations with customers who have contracts with Wrightbus.

 

The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public
interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. We
recognise the need for openness and transparency by public authorities but
in this instance the public interest in ensuring that we are able to
obtain the best value for public money with regards to the service
provided to secure this contract, outweighs the general public interest in
increasing transparency of TfL’s processes.

 

In addition, please note that in accordance with TfL’s obligations under
the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) any personal data has been removed, as
required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of
this personal data would be a breach of the DPA, specifically the first
principle of the DPA which requires all processing of personal data to be
fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal
information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed
and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions of Schedule 2 of the Data
Protection Act which would make the processing ‘fair’.

 

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, please feel free to contact me.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

 

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FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

E-mail 3 (final document).

 

From: FOI
Sent: 13 September 2013 09:24
To: '[FOI #168205 email]'
Subject: RE: FOI Request - New Bus for London Contracts

 

E-mail 2.

 

From: FOI
Sent: 13 September 2013 09:22
To: '[FOI #168205 email]'
Subject: FOI Request - New Bus for London Contracts

 

Dear Mr Hardy

 

Our Ref:         FOI-0644-1314

 

Thank you for your e-mail received on 9 July 2013 asking for information
about New Bus for London contracts. Please accept my apologies for the
delay in my response.

 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can
confirm we do hold the information you require.

 

Please find attached the current Wrightbus contract, Heatherwick contract,
and the lease Agreement which represents the form of lease for both
Metroline Travel and Arriva London North who operate our two New Bus for
London routes. Due to the size of the files I will send three separate
e-mails.

 

Please note that Schedules 4 and 9 of the Lease Agreement have not been
included as these documents are included in the Wrightbus Contract as
Schedule 22 and Schedule 4 respectively. Schedule 18 refers to operators’
logos which we have not yet received.

 

In accordance with the FOI Act, we are not obliged to supply some of the
information contained in the Wrightbus contract as it is subject to a
statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section
43(2), Commercial Interests.

 

In this instance the exemption has been applied as disclosure of the
information you have requested in relation to some of the design
specifications, price summary, and payment schedules included in the
contract with Wrightbus would, or would be likely to, prejudice Wrightbus’
commercial interests. There are on-going negotiations with some of
Wrightbus’s suppliers regarding some of the parts used in the manufacture
of the New Bus for London that could be affected if this information was
disclosed. The disclosure of price summaries and payment schedules could
influence negotiations with customers who have contracts with Wrightbus.

 

The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public
interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. We
recognise the need for openness and transparency by public authorities but
in this instance the public interest in ensuring that we are able to
obtain the best value for public money with regards to the service
provided to secure this contract, outweighs the general public interest in
increasing transparency of TfL’s processes.

 

In addition, please note that in accordance with TfL’s obligations under
the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) any personal data has been removed, as
required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of
this personal data would be a breach of the DPA, specifically the first
principle of the DPA which requires all processing of personal data to be
fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal
information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed
and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions of Schedule 2 of the Data
Protection Act which would make the processing ‘fair’.

 

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, please feel free to contact me.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

 

[1][TfL request email]

 

 

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