Please could you provide the number of customer reports of begging on the underground? If 5 years worth exceeds the cost limit, pleasse could I have the information broken down into the past three years.

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TfL Ref: FOI-0496-1920

Thank you for your email of 20^th May 2019 asking for information about begging on the London Underground.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

Specifically you asked:

“Please could you provide the number of customer reports (of begging on the Underground)? If 5 years worth exceeds the cost limit, please could I have the information broken down into the past three years.”

I can confirm that we hold the requested information. However, 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, even if we were to try search for just 3 years’ worth of data.

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 well in excess of this threshold to collate the information to answer your request. This is because we do not have a category for ‘begging’ or any similar, related keyword in the system we use to record complaints. In order to extract the relevant data we would need to review all of the complaints received during the time period requested to find those that are specifically ‘reports of begging’. Based on previous reporting done on complaints received this can take approximately four hours per reporting period. Three years worth of data would equate to 39 reporting periods, which would cost £3,900 to review.

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.

Note that we have previously published some information relating to complaints about begging on the Underground in response to other FOI requests, the most recent of which can be found here:

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-2827-1819

As you can see, this response included a spreadsheet with 4 periods’ worth of data to the end of 2018, showing that there were 59 complaints received in that time.

Note also that we continually help staff understand the importance of reporting anyone they believe may be vulnerable or in need of support on our transport network, and have issued guidance to staff to assist with this. Staff have access to information on how to help someone who may be rough sleeping, homeless or vulnerable, while ensuring anyone who behaves in a threatening manner towards customers or staff, or commits a crime, is reported to the police.

Members of the public can help alert the outreach team to anyone needing their help by using the online Streetlink service (www.streetlink.org.uk). The teams will connect people with services, including No Second Night Out which provides three 24-hour assessment hubs, to ensure people get a wide range of help immediately

Following advice from the British Transport Police, we make announcements in some of our stations and on trains about the presence of beggars or unlicensed buskers. We are seeing an increasing presence of people begging across our network and we are encouraging our customers to donate to charity projects and refer rough sleepers to support services via StreetLink, rather than giving directly to beggars.

We are also working with local outreach teams, as well as the Thames Reach team (joint-funded by the Mayor and TfL), to try to ensure vulnerable people receive the help they need.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely,

David Wells

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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