London Electric Scooters (E-Scooters) Rental Trial in London
Request ID: FOI-0174-2122 Date published: 21 May 2021
You asked
Good morning, under the provisions of the UK FOI Law and governing agency regulations, I hereby request a copy of the following information relevant to the London Electric Scooters (E-Scooters) Rental Trial in London OJEU (Reference tfl_scp_002092 Transport for London) whereby we specifically seek:
1. Awarded contract with Statement of work and winning proposal
2. All other contractor’s (vendor’s) submitted proposals (including cost and technical)
3. Agency Scoring and evaluations sheets / matrix used for selection of awardee
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-0174-2122
Thank you for your request received on 23 April 2021 asking for information about the electric scooter (e-scooter) trial in London.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require. You asked for:
1. Awarded contract with Statement of work and winning proposal
The statement of work is available in the attached Specification document.
In accordance with the FOI Act, we are not obliged to supply some of the information you have requested as it is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to information, under Section 22 of the Act.
In this instance the exemption has been applied as the information you have requested is intended for future publication.
The awarded contracts will be made available on Contracts Finder (https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder) in due course. The submissions form part of the contract. Redactions will be made for all information that is deemed confidential, commercially sensitive, a mutually agreed trade secret, intellectual property or prejudicial to commercial interests.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test, which requires us to assess whether the public interest in applying the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure. In this instance, it is considered that the public interest favours the publication of this information, in context and according to the pre-determined schedule, rather than in response to your request, to ensure the information is provided accurately and in an accessible manner.
2. All other contractor’s (vendor’s) submitted proposals (including cost and technical)
In accordance with the FOI Act, we are not obliged to supply the requested information as it is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section 43(2) – prejudice to commercial interests.
In this instance the section 43(2) exemption has been applied to as disclosure would be likely to prejudice our commercial interests as well as those of the remaining bidders. Disclosure of their submissions could hinder the ability of these companies being able to competitively tender for similar contracts in the future as well as hinder TfL’s ability to negotiate the best value for money for similar services in the future.
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 the need for openness and transparency by public authorities, but in this instance feel that balance lies in favour of withholding the requested information to ensure that the tender process remains as competitive as possible to ensure that we are able to obtain best value for public money when awarding contracts.
3. Agency Scoring and evaluations sheets / matrix used for selection of awardee
All information regarding the tender evaluation process, selection criteria and scoring process can be found in the attached documents:
I. Instructions to Tender II. Stage 1: Eligibility and Capability Assessment (ECA) III. Stage 2: Qualitative Evaluation (QE)
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.
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
