The number of private hire drivers who were licensed in 2019-20 despite having failed to inform us within 21 days of having receiving a conviction or caution.

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TfL Ref: FOI-0533-2021

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 2^nd July 2020 asking for information about the licensing of private hire vehicle drivers.

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

Specifically you asked for:

“The number of private hire drivers who were licensed in 2019-20 despite having failed to inform us within 21 days of having receiving a conviction or caution.”

To ensure the safety of the travelling public, taxi and private hire drivers must meet a range of strict criteria to ensure they are of good character. This is assessed on the basis of an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check submitted as part of a licence application, information provided by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and any other information that comes to our attention.

Once a decision regarding a driver's application has been made the results of the DBS check have to be destroyed. This is in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice which has statutory backing. Therefore, we do not hold all details of convictions and cautions, only those that have been declared to us by the driver.

Licensed drivers are obliged to notify us within 21 days if they have been disqualified from driving or have been cautioned, charged, or convicted of any criminal offence - including any road traffic offences. This requirement is clearly stated in the letter that accompanies all driver licences.

To provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set out in section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour - equivalent to 18 hours work. The information you have requested is not held in a format that would allow automated reporting. Rather, we would need to individually check over 100,000 individual driver records to identify, extract and collate the information held. This would considerably exceed the costs limit. To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing / reframing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking.

On a more general matter, please note that the impact of current circumstances on TfL’s resources means we are not able to answer FOI requests readily and we ask that you please do not make a request to us at present.

Answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. In any event, please note that our response time will be affected by the current situation.

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,

David Wells

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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