Dear Mr Kearney

Our Ref:         FOI-2503-1718 / FOI-2504-1718

Thank you for your requests received on 1 December 2017 asking for
information about FirstGroup Tram Operations Limited.

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

Your request will be processed by TfL, the Greater London Authority and
its subsidiaries to provide you with a response in accordance with the
Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

A response will be sent to you by 4 January 2018. 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

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[3][TfL request email]

FOI-2503-1718

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Dear Mr Kearney

Our Ref:          FOI-2470-1718 / FOI-2471-1718 / FOI-2472-1718 /
FOI-2473-1718 / FOI-2503-1718 / FOI-2504-1718 / FOI-2506-1718 /
FOI-2507-1718

Thank you for your e-mails asking for various pieces of information about
FirstGroup and bus safety.

Your requests have been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy.

Our records show that you have made 11 FOI requests to TfL in a continuous
period of 51 working days (excluding bank holidays) up to and including
the date of your most recent requests of 1 December 2017. Because of this
we are now applying an aggregate cost limit to the outstanding requests
which we received from you between 29 November 2017 and 1 December 2017,
inclusive.

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 of £450 provided for in the
Freedom of Information (FOI) and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour
spent on the activities described.

We have estimated that, to date, it has cost £350 to provide a response to
your earlier requests, equating to an estimated 14 hours spent locating,
retrieving and compiling the information you requested. We believe to
respond to your remaining current requests would require at least 15 hours
to retrieve, assess and compile the information at a further cost of £450
totalling 29 hours of work at an overall cost of £725.

As this overall cost exceeds the £450 limit, we are therefore applying
Regulation 5(1) of the Freedom of Information (FOI) and Data Protection
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, which permits us to take
into account requests made by the same person which relate, to any extent,
to the same or similar information.

Please note any further requests that we receive within a 60 working day
timeframe may also be subject to consideration under Section 12 of FOI.

While we appreciate there is a high level of interest in bus and tram
safety, there is a small team available to respond to these requests and
the burden placed on them has to be balanced with their substantive roles.
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450
limit, you may wish to prioritise the information you have requested and
make a single request on a topic, rather than several requests in a short
period of time.

With regard to FOI-2503-1718, ‘Item 33/06/17 of the Minutes of the 26 June
2017 Meeting of the Safety, Sustainability and Human Resources Panel
states "An audit of FirstGroup’s fatigue management processes had taken
place, these were found to be satisfactory and did not give rise to any
concerns." Please provide me with a copy of this audit and all
correspondence and documentation associated with it.’ Whilst this has been
included in our aggregate cost estimation, we can advise that this
information is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to
information under section 31(1)(g).

This information is exempt from disclosure as it is subject to a statutory
exemption to the right of access to information under section 31(1)(g) of
the FOI Act, which relates to information whose disclosure would be likely
to prejudice the exercise by any public authority of its functions for any
of the purposes listed in subsection 31(2) of the FOI Act. In this
instance, the relevant purposes are 31(2)(c) ‘the purpose of ascertaining
whether circumstances which would justify regulatory action in pursuance
of any enactment exist or may arise’; 2(e), ‘the purpose of ascertaining
the cause of an accident’; 2(i) ‘the purpose of securing the health,
safety and welfare of persons at work’ and 2(j) ‘the purpose of protecting
persons other than persons at work against risk to health or safety
arising out of or in connection with the actions of persons at work’. The
public authorities concerned are the RAIB, the British Transport Police
(BTP), the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) and ourselves, all of whom are
currently conducting investigations into the tram incident at Sandilands
on 9 November 2016.

The ORR's investigation includes the tram network's safety management
system and therefore disclosure of the requested information could
prejudice the ORR’s task of establishing whether the system in place was
adequate and, for instance, took account of speeding incidents. The
requested information will therefore be of relevance to their
investigation and could be of relevance to the other investigations as
they progress. The release of this information to the wider public at this
time would be prejudicial to the investigators’ ability to gather, assess
and validate information which they require in order to complete their
work.

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 that there is considerable public interest in the safe operation
of the tram network and, in particular, in the events of 9 November and
the factors that may have contributed to the incident. We recognise that
transparency and public access to information will help satisfy that
interest. At the same time we consider that this public interest will be
largely met by the RAIB, who have just published their [1]findings, and
through the final, public, outcome of the investigations by the ORR and
BTP.

There is also a considerable public interest in ensuring that the
investigations underway are able to reach conclusions, and recommend
appropriate actions, that take full account of all available material. The
publication of information that is under consideration by the
investigators, and which may contribute to speculation about the causes of
the crash, would be likely to prejudice the timely conclusion of those
investigations and any proceedings that may arise from them. On balance,
and taking into account the fact that the current investigations remain
live, we consider that the public interest supports the application of the
exemption in this case.

We are still processing two of your outstanding requests - FOI-1943-1718
and FOI-1967-1718. A response to these requests will be sent as soon as
possible.

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

[2][TfL request email]

FOI-2470-1718

Please provide me a list of the Names of the Organisations invited to
attend TfL's 14 November 2017 "Bus Safety Summit."

FOI-2471-1718

Please provide me with a list of Names of the Organisations whose
representatives attended TfL's 14 November 2017 "Bus Safety Summit."

FOI-2472-1718

Please provide me with copies of each presentation made by the following
TfL officials at the 14 November 2017 "Bus Safety Summit":
1. Transport Commissioner
2. Deputy Mayor for Transport and TfL Board Member 3. Managing Director,
Surface Transport 4. Director of Rail and Sponsored Services 5. Director
of London Trams

FOI-2473-1718

Please provide me with a copy of each presentation made by the
representatives of these private companies at the TfL 14 November 2017
"Bus Safety Summit"
1. Seeing Machines
2. Abellio
3. Balfour Beatty

FOI-2503-1718

Item 33/06/17 of the Minutes of the 26 June 2017 Meeting of the Safety,
Sustainability and Human Resources Panel states "An audit of FirstGroup’s
fatigue management processes had taken place, these were found to be
satisfactory and did not give rise to any concerns."

Please provide me with a copy of this audit and all correspondence and
documentation associated with it.

FOI-2504-1718

Item 47/09/17 of the Minutes of 28 September 2017 meeting of the Safety,
Sustainability and Human Resources Panel states "Decisions on safety
systems took place at a joint panel attended by FirstGroup and TfL."

Kindly provide me with the Terms of Reference, any minutes, agendas and
all correspondence and documentation associated with this joint panel.

FOI-2506-1718

In his response to Question 2017/4242 "Learning from Near Miss Bus Safety
Incidents" the Mayor of London states: "Yes, bus drivers are encouraged to
report all incidents on the bus network regardless of whether they were
near misses, minor or more serious collisions. These events are collated
with other incidents and categorised to help inform Transport for London's
bus safety work."

Kindly provide me with TfL's collated Near Miss Data for the period 1
January - 30 November 2017. If possible, for each incident, please
identify the date, Bus Operator, Bus Route, Borough, Bus Garage and mode
of transport involved.

FOI-2507-1718

In his response to Question 2017/4245 "Near-miss Collision Reporting" the
Mayor of London states: "TfL regularly audits the safety management
systems of bus operators to ensure they have processes in place to fulfil
its expectations including the reporting of safety incidents."

For 2016 and 2017, please provide me with copies of all the "regular"
audits TfL has conducted of the safety management systems of bus operators
with a particular emphasis on any material relating to near miss collision
reporting.

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References

Visible links
1. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/sy...
2. mailto:[TfL request email]
3. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/