Thank you for your email. I am on leave until Monday 1 February. For FOI
enquiries please email [TfL request email]

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

References

Visible links
1. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/

Dear Mr Bryant

Our Ref:         FOI-2189-2021

Thank you for your request received on 29 January 2021 asking for
correspondence between the Managing Director of Surface Transport and UK
bus manufacturers.

Please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this
current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited
resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other
essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response
time may be impacted by the current situation and so you may wish to
reconsider the timing of this request.

In order for us to proceed with your request, please provide us with a
timeframe for the requested information.

The FOI Act allows you to request recorded information held by Transport
for London (TfL). There are limits on the time that TfL are required to
spend determining whether TfL holds the information you are requesting and
the time spent locating, retrieving and extracting it. Therefore you
should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as
you can.

Please note that the 20 working day deadline for responding to your
request will depend on when we receive satisfactory additional information
to help clarify your request.

If we hear nothing further from you by 19 February 2021 your request will
be closed.

In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your
request, please feel free to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob

Senior FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[1][TfL request email]

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

TfL UNCLASSIFIED

Dear Mr Bryant

Our Ref:         FOI-2189-2021

Thank you for clarifying your request asking for correspondence between
the Managing Director of Surface Transport and UK bus manufacturers.

Please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this
current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited
resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other
essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response
time may be impacted by the current situation and so you may wish to
reconsider the timing of this request. Please notify us as soon as
possible if you would like to withdraw your request at the current time.

Should you wish to proceed with the request we will aim to issue a
response by 26 February 2021 in accordance with the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 and our information access policy. We publish a substantial
range of information on our website on subjects including operational
performance, contracts, expenditure, journey data, governance and our
financial performance. This includes data which is frequently asked for in
FOI requests or other public queries. Please check
[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transpar... to see if this helps you.

We will publish anonymised versions of requests and responses on the
[2]www.tfl.gov.uk website. We will not publish your name and we will send
a copy of the response to you before it is published on our website.

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob

Senior FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[3][TfL request email]

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Dear Mr Bryant

Our Ref:         FOI-2189-2021

Thank you for your request asking for correspondence between the Managing
Director of Surface Transport and UK bus manufacturers.

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

However, we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the Act,
which provides an exemption to the disclosure of information where a
request is considered to be ‘vexatious’. In reaching this conclusion we
have drawn on guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
that can be found on its website here:
[1]https://ico.org.uk/media/1198/dealing-wi....

You will note that this guidance includes the following advice to public
authorities:

“Section 14(1) may be used in a variety of circumstances where a request,
or its impact on a public authority, cannot be justified. Whilst public
authorities should think carefully before refusing a request as vexatious
they should not regard section 14(1) as something which is only to be
applied in the most extreme circumstances”;

“Sometimes a request may be so patently unreasonable or objectionable that
it will obviously be vexatious….In cases where the issue is not clear-cut,
the key question to ask is whether the request is likely to cause a
disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or
distress…This will usually be a matter of objectively judging the evidence
of the impact on the authority and weighing this against any evidence
about the purpose and value of the request”;

“The public authority may take into account the context and history of the
request, where this is relevant”;

“The information Commissioner recognises that dealing with unreasonable
requests can place a strain on resources and get in the way of delivering
mainstream services or answering legitimate requests.”

“Section 14(1) is designed to protect public authorities by allowing them
to refuse any request which have the potential to cause a disproportionate
or unjustified level of disruption, irriation or distress”.

“…the concepts of ‘proportionality’ and ‘justification’ are central to any
consideration of whether a request is vexatious”;

The guidance includes some specific indicators to help public authorities
judge whether or not a case should be considered vexatious. This includes
the following:

“Burden on the authority: the effort required to meet the request will be
so grossly oppressive in terms of the strain on time and resources, that
the authority cannot reasonably be expected to comply, no matter how
legitimate the subject matter or valid the intentions of the requester”;

“Frequent or overlapping requests: the requester submits frequent
correspondence about the same issue or sends in new requests before the
public authority has had an opportunity to address their earlier
enquiries”.

“Disproportionate effort: the matter being pursued by the requester is
relatively trivial and the authority would have to extend a
disproportionate amount of resources in order to meet the request.”

The ICO’s guidance states that one of the indicators of a request which
may fall under section 14(1) is that it “appears to be part of a
completely random approach, lacks any clear focus, or seems to have been
solely designed for the purpose of ‘fishing’ for information without any
idea of what might be revealed.”

The ICO guidance provides the following examples of a ‘fishing expedition’
request which may fall under section 14(1) if it:

- Imposes a burden by obliging the authority to sift through a substantial
volume of information to isolate and extract the relevant details;

- Encompasses information which is only of limited value because of the
wide scope of the request;

- Creates a burden by requiring the authority to spend a considerable
amount of time considering any exemptions and redactions.

Our view is that all three of these examples apply in this instance.

We consider that providing the requested information would place an
unreasonable burden on us as it would be necessary to review all of the
requested information in significant detail to ascertain whether an
exemption might apply to any of the information contained within the
correspondence. Given the volume of information caught by your
non-specific request, the process of reviewing and redacting the
information would be disproportionate to the benefit of providing it.
Therefore, due to the wide and unfocused scope of your request, we are
refusing it under section 14 (1) of the FOI Act.

Our principal duty is to provide an effective transport service for London
and we consider that answering this request would represent a
disproportionate effort. It would be a significant distraction from our
work managing the TfL network, requiring re-allocation of already limited
resources and placing an unacceptable burden on a small number of
personnel. We do wish to clarify that whilst we consider that your request
falls under section 14(1) of the FOI Act, this does not reflect a
conclusion that it has been your intention to deliberately place an undue
burden on our resources.

If you would like to re-submit a more focused, specific request then we
will, of course, consider it. For example, a request on a particular,
specific, subject or issue is less likely to raise concerns about the
disproportionate effort required to answer it.

If you are considering submitting a further FOI request please think
carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as
answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the
attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where
requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by
the current situation.

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

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob

Senior FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[2][TfL request email]

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir