Sexual harassment on London transport

Dear Mr Blackie

Our Ref:         FOI-2323-2324

Thank you for your request received on 4 October 2023 asking for
information about research done into sexual harassment on London
transport.

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

A response will be sent to you by 31 October 2023. 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]

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Dear Mr Blackie

Our Ref:         FOI-2323-2324

Thank you for your request received on 4 October 2023 asking for
information about research done into sexual harassment on London
transport.

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

We conduct surveys with customers on our network to assess safety and
security. A module within the survey was dedicated to unwanted sexual
behaviour. There were two ways in which a respondent could answer this
module:

 1. Any respondents that indicated that they had experienced witnessing a
crime on public transport were asked if this crime was unwanted sexual
behaviour targeted at others
 2. Any respondent that stated that they had experienced unwanted sexual
behaviour at the “any worrying incident” or “most worrying incident”
questions were asked if it was targeted at them personally or someone
else (i.e. they were a witness).

The survey results show levels are at a very low rate, less than 5%. The
proportion experiencing unwanted sexual behaviour has slowly declined
since Q1 22/23 and remain as low as pre-pandemic. Similarly, the
proportion of Londoners witnessing unwanted sexual behaviour are also
lower than Q1 22/23 and remain as low as pre-pandemic. Due to the low base
sizes within this survey module very limited analysis has been possible;
this is recorded internally in our Safety and Security tracker but as
these questions form only a small part of the survey we do not intend to
publish this information.

We do publish some information on our website that may be of interest to
you:

[1]https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publication...

[2]https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publication...

We encourage anyone who experiences or witnesses a crime on London
Underground or rail modes to report it to the British Transport Police by
texting 61016, or via the free Railway Guardian App. Customers can also
report incidents to members of staff. Customers can report an incident on
the bus network at [3]www.met.police.uk or by calling 101. We make a
substantial investment in front line policing to help improve safety on
our services. We have been funding dedicated policing on rail, tube and
bus services in London over a long period, and our relationship with the
police is such that we work closely to deliver shared objectives such as
tackling violence and hate crime, often deploying jointly to locations and
times which are higher risk for offences. We invest more than £100 million
a year in policing, which helps to fund over 2,500 officers across all
modes. It also means there is significant investigative capability when
offences do take place. In addition to this policing investment we also
have over 500 TfL operations officers with enforcement powers, and they
all receive hate crime training. Our operations officers are uniformed and
will act if they ever witness unacceptable behaviour, targeting offenders
and supporting victims.

The safety of all passengers is an absolute priority for us, especially
women’s safety. Any crime on our services is unacceptable and no one
should feel distressed when travelling on our network by the behaviour of
others. We know that by intervening, bystanders can make a huge impact on
the experience of someone being targeted and can help ensure they are safe
and supported. This is why we have launched [4]bystander campaigns
focusing on women’s safety and hate crime. These bystander campaigns
contain core messaging designed to show how anyone can be an active
bystander against misogyny and hate crime if they ever witness someone
being targeted. The key message is how to intervene safely in order to
protect someone being targeted without placing yourself at risk. Please be
assured that we are acting on every complaint and learning from every
incident to help us improve how we tackle all forms of violence against
women and girls on our network.

We use a range of research conducted by other organisations to inform our
approach to safety and security. Regarding women’s safety this research
includes, but is not limited to;

• [5]Rail Delivery Group Research
• [6]UN Women Research to Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces
• [7]End Violence Against Women Research
• [8]Plan International Research

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

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

[9][TfL request email]

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TfL Ref: IRV-156-2324

Thank you for your email which was received by Transport for London (TfL) on 5 November 2023

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

A review will be conducted by an internal review panel in accordance with TfL’s Internal Review Procedure, which is available via the following URL:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparenc...

Every effort will be made to provide you with a response by 4 December 2023. 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 contact me.

Emma Flint
Principal Information Access Adviser
FOI Case Management Team
Transport for London

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Dear Rob Blackie

I am contacting you with regards to your email request for an internal
review on 5 November 2023. Following your email a review has been carried
out by an Independent Review Panel (‘the panel’) consisting of individuals
who were not involved in the handling of your request (FOI-2323-2324).

To confirm your original FOI request asked for the following - "what
research have you done on the extent of sexual harassment on London
Transport? If you have done research, please could you publish it."

Following the response to your FOI request, your subsequent email of 5
November stated “Could you please publish the data tables that contain the
5% figures etc. please? It is usually good practice to publish data tables
when you cite a figure, to give context. For instance if you were citing
figures like this in the political polling context, then British Polling
Council guidance would compel you to do this.”

The panel has liaised with TfL’s Insight Manager for Customer Insight
Strategy and Experience who has provided the attached slides. As advised
in response to FOI-2323-2324 the majority of the information we glean from
the perception survey is based on small sample sizes and so limited
analysis has been possible. There are a very low number of cases that we
pick up on Customer Pulse (the research survey) each quarter we report
this data. Due to this it was decided that it would be potentially
misleading to continually publish the proportions where the bases are so
low. The reason for this is that the ‘confidence interval’ or ‘random
sampling error’ would be too great making a comparison of the wave by wave
data not possible.

I hope the above response has provided a better clarity regarding the
information you seek, however if you are dissatisfied with the internal
review actions to date please do not hesitate to contact me or alternately
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.org.uk).

Yours sincerely

Emma Flint
Principal Information Access Adviser
FOI Case Management Team
Transport for London

[2][TfL request email]

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