Request ID: FOI-0034-2425 Date published: 30 April 2024
You asked
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding Flexible Working Applications submitted to your organisation.
Specifically, I would like to request the following information for the period from January 1, 2022, to the current date:
• The total number of Flexible Working Applications submitted.
• The number of Flexible Working Applications granted.
• The number of Flexible Working applications was denied.
• The ethnicities of the individuals whose Flexible Working Applications were granted.
• The ethnicities of the individuals whose flexible working applications were denied.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-0034-2425
Thank you for your request received on 8 April 2024 asking for information about flexible working applications.
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.
Please see the total number of formal flexible working requests which have been denied or approved since the 1 January 2022. Please note that there may be informal flexible working requests which can be raised between a colleague and their line manager. To source this data from individual managers at the local level across the organisation would exceed the costs limit for responding to FOI cases as set out under section 12 of the FOI Act. Under section 12, we are not obliged to provide information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if that information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract it from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work.
Ethnicity
Granted
Denied
Asian or Asian British
<10
<10
Black or Black British
<10
13
Dual Heritage / Mixed Race and Other ethnic groups
<10
<10
White
10
22
Unknown
6
13
Prefer not to Say
1
4
Total
25
57
In accordance with our obligations under Data Protection legislation, information on ethnicity groups where there are ten or fewer people has been withheld as required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act as personal data of these persons could be identified. Disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of data protection legislation, specifically the first principle of principle of Article 5 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation 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 we have not satisfied one of the conditions which would make the processing ‘fair’.
This exemption to the right of access to information is an absolute exemption and not subject to an assessment of whether the public interest favours use of the exemption.
If this is not the information you are looking for 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
