FOI request detail

Grievances

Request ID: FOI-0382-1718
Date published: 07 June 2017

You asked
I would like to know the following information as I am unable to get the answers conventionally within the organisation. The questions are as follows: 1) Could you tell me how many employees within PPD asked for their grievances to be heard outside PPD and the requests were granted? 2) How many employees within PPD asked to leave PPD but are still employed within TfL and their requests were granted without them being re-deployed? 3) How many qualified (Civil Engineers) employees did not receive feedback for jobs they were qualified for? 4) How many employees who were not qualified (Civil Engineering) as mentioned above with the experience and/or qualifications were successfully moved from Project Support Officers (PSO) to Assistant Project Managers (APM) after applying for the APM roles? The timescale I am interested in is from 2013 to date. I ask further 5) How many Project Support Officers were given 5 schemes to project manage with permission given by HR and Senior Management within PPD? 6) How many employees within PPD had their medical assessments ignored by HR and Senior Management for 7 months but then the medical assessment was used to stand down employees for a further? 7) How many employees were promised APM roles by HR and Senior Management on their return to work then had the promise reneged on? 8) How many Project Support Officers have Civil Engineering Degrees and 10 plus years experiencing project managing schemes for TfL? 9) How many Assistant Project Managers, Project Managers, Programme Managers within current PPD have Civil Engineering Degrees as a minimum? What are their genders race, how long have they worked for TfL and who are they? 10) Could the TfL policy document be made available to me whereby HR can determine which employees can take out or cannot take out grievances? 11) What are the procedures in place to make managers provide feedback to applicants and employees they have interviewed for job roles? 12) How many Black women are Bands 4 and above in TfL and which departments do they work in? 13) What procedures are in place to make sure policy is adhered by HR and Senior Management and what are these procedures/policies? In particular what are the consequences to the aforementioned if all documents pertaining to my grievance appeal 2013 are not made available to me despite past requests verbally and via Subject Access Request?

We answered

TfL Ref: 0382-1718

 

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 19 May 2017 asking for a large amount of information about  grievances, staff moves, staff qualifications, medical assessments and policy documents.

 

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 we do hold some of the information you require.

 

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 significantly exceed the appropriate cost limit to provide a response to your current request. This is primarily because no centralised electronic data exists for a number of your questions. In order to identify and extract this information, we would need to contact a number of people and review a large number of records to locate and retrieve this information.

 

With regard to questions 4 and 8, TfL does not record qualifications of an individual in terms of degrees, exams etc. unless they are specifically required for that person to be able to undertake their current duties. With regard to question 1, grievances and other People Management Advice (PMA) cases are linked to a person, and not to an area of employment within TfL, so when the people move jobs within the organisation their case moves with them and their records, even when it is completed.  In order to determine where a member of staff was employed when a case was raised paperwork for all records would need to be manually looked through. There are currently 206 employees in Surface PPD area.  This does not include any former PPD staff who raised grievances and who have since moved on to alternative employment either within or outside of TfL. It is estimated that it would significantly exceed the appropriate limit to identify and extract any relevant information pertaining to this part of your request alone.

 

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. 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. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, geographical area or specific departments of the organisation.

 

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.

 

From an initial review of your request we believe that it is potentially possible to provide you with information for question 12. We would also advise that all staff policy and procedure documents are available on Source using this link: http://source.tfl/ which would answer  questions 10, 11 and 13.

 

Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.

 

In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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