Correspondence on Impact of Covid-19 on Crossrail2
Request ID: FOI-0368-2122 Date published: 10 June 2021
You asked
Could I request copies of any correspondence referring to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Crossrail 2.
Correspondence regarding the commitment by Transport for London (TfL) in relation to Crossrail 2 that TfL “prioritises safeguarding activity and brings an orderly end to consultancy work as soon as possible”, included in the funding agreement with the Government of 31 October 2020.
Timeframe: 1 March 2020 – 31 October 2020
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-0368-2122
Thank you for your request of 25 May 2021 asking for correspondence regarding the impact of COVID-19 on Crossrail 2.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy.
Unfortunately, to provide 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 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. This is calculated at £25 per hour for every hour spent on the activities described.
We have estimated that it would cost in excess of £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
The Secretary of State made the statement that TfL “prioritises safeguarding activity and brings an orderly end to consultancy work as soon as possible” in October 2020. Prior to this statement TfL were not acting as required by this statement. Any discussions and correspondence regarding the statement would have taken place as part of our ongoing wider funding agreement discussions.
In order to identify any of the correspondence that may have discussed Crossrail 2 we would have to review all of the correspondence we hold regarding the funding agreement. This would likely be thousands of emails and we could not be sure that we captured all the relevant correspondence.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking.
Since the announcement all of TfL’s activity regarding Crossrail 2 has been in relation to the statement. The main focus of this work has included:
• Creation of the TfL Crossrail 2 information portal – The portal is an electronic archive of the scheme design work that has been undertaken to date on the Crossrail 2 project • Manging the Crossrail 2 inbox - replying to email queries, property search enquires and advising local planning authorities of TfL’s response to planning applications as required by the 2015 Crossrail 2 Safeguarding Directions • Managing the withdrawal of the Crossrail 2 consultancy services and the Crossrail 2 Team as required in the TfL funding agreement with the Government of 31 October 2020 • Ongoing engagement with the DfT with regard to updating the Safeguarding Directions and a timetable for this work
If you would like to make a request regarding any of the above then please specify the scope of the information you require. As previously advised, we may be able to assist you better with your queries if you have specific questions regarding Crossrail 2. We strongly recommend you outline, as clearly and concisely as possible, precisely the information and types of document you require. Requests that lack a clear focus are more likely to lead to concerns about the processing time required to meet our obligations under the FOI Act.
By their nature, emails contain a significant amount of personal data such as phone numbers and email addresses and so, whilst this process of redaction does not feature as part of our considerations on whether the cost limit might apply, the burden created by non-specific requests for emails is significant and this should be borne in mind before submitting requests of this nature.
If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do not have to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request.
Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.
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
