Request ID: FOI-0175-2425 Date published: 03 May 2024
You asked
Do you have information on TfL equipment that has been confirmed stolen from its construction sites in the last 5 years? Do you have disaggregated data that breaks it down by type? Do you have the total value of equipment stolen in each year?
We answered
Our ref: FOI-0175-2425/GH
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 15 April 2024 asking for information about equipment theft from TfL construction sites.
Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.
However, to search for 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
Construction for TfL projects is usually carried out by contractors, who would use their own equipment. TfL would not necessarily know of any incidents of thefts of a contractor's equipment. Additionally, any incidents of TfL equipment being stolen would not be recorded centrally. Therefore, in order to answer your request, we would need to identify each construction site for the last 5 years, and then search the records for this project to find if there were any reported incidents involving the theft of equipment. We would expect such incidents to be minimal, but to carry out the relevant searches to locate and compile any relevant information would be a huge task, well in excess of the ‘appropriate limit’.
If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Graham Hurt FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
