Dear Mr Briggs

TfL Ref:          FOI-1450-1112

Thank you for your e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL) on 20
January 2012 asking for information about the location of TfL offices in
London.

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 17 February 2012.

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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Dear Mr Briggs

TfL Ref:          FOI-1450-1112

Thank you for your e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL) on 20
January 2012 asking for information about the location of TfL offices in
London.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy. I can
confirm TfL does hold the information you require. You asked for:

A list of all your offices within London and their contact details

Please find attached a list of TfL buildings and their addresses.

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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Dear Mr Briggs

TfL Ref:          FOI-1450-1112

Thank you for your further e-mail following your recent request for a list
of TfL offices.

Please find attached a revised list of TfL offices, including information
on our stations.

If I can be of any further assistance 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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Dear Mr Briggs

TfL Ref:          FOI-1635-1112

Thank you for your further e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL)
on 8 February 2012 asking for a list of all TfL offices and their contact
details.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and TfL’s information access policy. 

Unfortunately, from the description provided, we are unable to identify
the information you require.

To enable us to assist with your request, please provide a more detailed
description of the information you’re seeking. If you could please clarify
what you refer to by the term ‘office’ as any room with a desk could be
defined as an office. I have previously provided a list of Head Office
buildings, however you have advised that you want a list that also
includes stations. All stations have a ticket office, although they may
not be in use. If you could please specify what information you would like
together with any other details you think might help us locate the
information you require.

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 7 March 2012 your response will be
treated as a new request.

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

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[1][TfL request email]

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Dear Mr Briggs,
 
Thank you for your further email.
 
The directory you refer to was the documents that have already been
provided to you. For that reason, I remain unsure as to what exactly you
are requesting. Please note that many of the buildings will have lots of
phone numbers as they contain several working departments and, to collate
each and every one of those phone numbers would likely exceed the cost
limit, if indeed that is what you are requesting. We have a dedicated
switchboard that is tasked with ensuring callers reach the correct
department.
 
Could you please explicitly state exactly what it is you are requesting as
the matter is being confused by quoting ‘parking contraventions
regulations’ which appear to have little to do with your request and the
fact that you have already been given the full directory list, as we hold
it.
 
Once we have this precise request I will begin to look into the matter.
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 13 March your response will be
treated as a new request.
 
Yours sincerely
 
Lee Hill
FOI Case Officer
 
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
 
 
 

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Dear Mr Briggs,

Please accept my apologies for not sending an acknowledgement of receipt
regarding your clarification.

I can confirm that I am in the process of finalising a response to your
request and am confident that this will be sent to you in the next few
days.

However, if you would like us to conduct an internal review at this stage,
please confirm and I will ensure this is dealt with.

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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Dear Mr Briggs

TfL Ref: FOI-1695-1112

Thank you for your further email, following on from your previous request
(FOI-1635-1112), and received by Transport for London (TfL) on 21 February
2012 asking for information about TfL contact details.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy. I can
confirm TfL does hold the information you require. You asked:

All I need is a copy of the database with all contact numbers and address.
I suppose this is what the switchboard actually uses.

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed
the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a
request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the
information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other
information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25
per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.

We have estimated that it would in excess of the £450 appropriate limit to
provide a response to your current request. This is because it is
estimated that it would take more than 18 working hours to retrieve,
assess and compile the information you have requested.

As you were previously advised, each TfL building has multiple phone
numbers as many of them contain several different departments spread over
several different floors. We provide contact details for the general
public on our website: [1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/contact/4417.aspx.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450
limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more
easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. For
example, you may wish to focus your request by being more specific about
the particular information you wish to obtain and limiting it, for
instance, to one department.

Additionally, with regards to any direct telephone numbers to individuals
who work on our 0845 number helpdesk lines, TfL is not obliged to supply
these direct numbers, as this information is subject to a statutory
exemption to the right of access to information under Section 43(2) –
commercial interests.

TfL is applying this exemption because disclosure would affect our
business with our suppliers. We pay suppliers depending on the number of
calls we send them. If the 01 or 02 numbers are distributed, and the
public use these numbers to call into our contact centres, TfL will need
to pay the suppliers for taking a call. If callers dialled the wrong
departments, TfL would pay the supplier for the initial call, as well as
paying other suppliers if that call had to be re-rerouted or transferred
to another company. Without calls coming through our central numbers, we
are not able to tell how many calls our suppliers should be billing us
for.

The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public
interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. TfL
recognises that publishing the information would be beneficial to callers,
in that they might be able to save on the cost of calls to our service.
However, publishing these numbers would not only affect our business, but
also the service provided to customers. Allowing customers to dial the
geographical numbers directly would mean that they would not receive self
service options or the opportunity to select the type of enquiry they wish
to make. This would mean that calls would require additional transfers,
with additional waiting time and a reduced quality in service. We also
sometimes change the geographic numbers and, along with the fact that many
departments do not always have an individual ready to pick up a ringing
phone, having a single switchboard number along with those listed on our
website means that we can ensure that in such circumstances calls continue
to be taken and routed correctly. On the balance of these factors we
consider that the public interest favours withholding the numbers you have
requested.

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

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would
like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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Dear Mr Briggs

TfL Ref: FOI-1907-1112

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 20
March 2012 asking for information about TfL offices.

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 19 April.

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

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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Dear Mr Briggs

TfL Ref: FOI-1907-1112

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 20
March 2012 asking for information about TfL building details.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy. I can
confirm TfL holds some of the information you require. You asked for:

A list of all your offices and their email addresses and the main phone
numbers for each building?

As advised previously there is no single document that lists all TfL
offices along with their email addresses and phone numbers. You have
already been provided with the only and most up to date list of TfL
buildings and their postal addresses. For ease of reference, I have
attached this again.

Furthermore, as explained in our previous response, the majority of those
buildings contain a large variety of different departments and teams, so
there would be a vast amount of phone numbers and email addresses to
locate, extract and collate to enable us to provide an answer your
request.

Doing this would far exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the
Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 where
by under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a
request if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the
information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other
information would exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25
per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.

To re-iterate, there is no such document which details the requested
information for every TfL office and so we have provided as much
information as we are able.  The contacts list on our website details the
main customer focused departments within TfL and, for any query regarding
departments outside of those areas, the switchboard is the most suitable
option (which is also a geographical phone number). For this reason, there
is no real demand for a full, comprehensive office list document to exist
and it would be costly and time consuming to continually maintain and
update.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would
like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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Our ref: IRV-012-1213

Dear Mr Briggs

Request for internal review

Thank you for your request for an internal review which was received by
Transport for London (TfL) on 24 April 2012.

You have stated that you are dissatisfied with the handling of your
request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

The review will be conducted by an internal review panel in accordance
with TfL’s Internal Review Procedure, which is available via the following
URL: [1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/foi/893.aspx

Every effort will be made to provide you with a response by 23 May.
However, if the review will not be completed by this date, we will contact
you and notify you of the revised response date as soon as possible.

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

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

FOI Case Officer

E-mail: [2][TfL request email]

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24 July 2012

Our reference: IRV-012-1213

Dear Mr Briggs

The internal review into the handling of your request for information
under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act has been completed. I am sorry
about the delay in providing you with this response. The review has been
undertaken by a panel that were not previously involved in responding to
your request.

The review has determined that the requested information in the form of
all phone numbers and email addresses is exempt from disclosure under
section 38 of the FOI Act, which relates to information whose release
would, or would be likely to engager the physical or mental health of any
individuals, or endanger the safety of any individual, and section 40(2),
which relates to personal data whose disclosure would breach any of the
data protection principles.

TfL employs in excess of 20,000 people and we are aware that some of these
people will have valid reasons for not wishing the fact that they work for
TfL and/or their contact details to be made available to the general
public. It is an established principle that any disclosures made under FOI
are considered to be made to the general public, not just the requester.
TfL staff have been the victims of harassment and, in some cases,
violence. In some cases this has been the result of their professional
duties, such as with respect to TfL’s involve traffic and fare enforcement
responsibilities, whereas in others adverse events have arisen from their
private lives. TfL considers that these people would have a reasonable
expectation that their contact details would not be released into the
public domain without prior consultation. Not all TfL staff have public
facing roles, so we consider this would be a legitimate expectation and
therefore that the release of this information would breach the first data
protection principle as well as risk the health and safety of TfL staff.
The review further notes that, in order for the release of any of this
information to be fair, all staff would have to be consulted, which would
be prohibitive in time, cost and expense.

In addition, the review panel noted that you had been provided with a
considerable amount of information and also that extensive effort had gone
into identifying exactly what telephone numbers you were seeking. The
review panel considered that “main telephone numbers” was not a clear term
and that a reasonable interpretation of this would be the reception
numbers for those TfL buildings that have staffed reception desks.

The panel determined that the release of the Reception desk numbers would
also be likely to endanger the health and safety of TfL staff and others
and therefore that this information is also exempt by virtue of section
38. Although TfL has around 45 staffed reception desks in its various Head
Offices, only 3 of these are staffed by TfL employees, with the rest being
staffed by our security provider, Carlisle Security.

The purpose of our reception staff is to provide face to face customer
service for staff and visitors entering and leaving the building, and in
addition they form a key part of our Security of these building and
response to any emergency situation within a building. It would not be
operationally feasible for the staff on these receptions to provide a
professional Switchboard service and as a result they do not have access
to TfL directory information.

Many people who call TfL Switchboard are highly irate and seeking access
to senior members of staff. It requires specific training for Switchboard
staff to be able to manage such calls. This training is not currently
offered to all of our security staff across the portfolio, many of whom
are not our employers. It would therefore be likely to cause serious
distress to our security staff to have to handle such calls as a result of
their contact numbers being released, as well as diminishing their
capacity to deliver an effective building security service. In addition,
although rare, TfL does received security threats and, as a result of
providing a unified point of contact via Switchboard, typically these
would be routed via our appropriately trained staff, who are aware of how
to respond and escalate such calls. We consider that increasing the
likelihood that such threats would be routed via untrained, often non-TfL
staff would be likely to increase the risk of inappropriate responses to
such calls, with the attendant risk to TfL’s staff and visitors.

Section 38 is a qualified exemption, which means that we must consider the
balance of the public interest. We recognise that there is a general
public interest in disclosure of information but do not consider that
there are any other public interest factors in favour of making further
information publically available. By contrast, TfL already publishes its
Switchboard number, which provides sufficient detail to reasonably enable
callers to contact specific members of staff without publishing their
direct dial numbers or the contact details of security staff. We consider
that there is an inherently strong public interest in safeguarding the
health and safety of our staff and visitors and that there are no public
interest factors in this case sufficiently strong to risk endangering
them.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of this internal review, you can
refer the matter to the independent authority responsible for enforcing
the Freedom of Information Act, at the following address.

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

A complaint form is also available on the ICO’s website
([1]www.ico.gov.uk).

Yours sincerely

Peter Sloane | Senior Information Governance Adviser (Enforcement and
Complaints)

Information Governance | General Counsel | Transport for London

Windsor House, 42-50 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0TL

T: 020 7126 4912 | E: [2][email address]

TfL has recently adopted an ‘information security classification scheme’
to help protect its information assets. If you work for TfL or one of its
subsidiaries and want to find out how this affects you, see the new
[3]Quick Guide or visit [4]Source for more information.

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