Hello, may I have all the daily reviews on the Metropolitan Line made in 2019 from January 1st to 23 of May. Thank You!

---

Our ref: FOI-0541-1920/GH

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 23 May 2019 asking for copies of the daily reviews for the Metropolitan Line.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.

I can confirm that we do hold the information you require, however, I regret to inform you that we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the Act, as it would place an unreasonable burden on us. Our principal duty is to provide an effective transport service for London and we consider that answering this request would represent a disproportionate effort. It would be a significant distraction from our work managing the TfL network, requiring re-allocation of already limited resources and placing an unacceptable burden on a small number of personnel. We do wish to clarify that whilst we consider that your request falls under section 14(1) of the FOI Act, this does not reflect a conclusion that it has been your intention to deliberately place an undue burden on our resources.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance states that one of the indicators of a request which may fall under section 14(1) is that it “appears to be part of a completely random approach, lacks any clear focus, or seems to have been solely designed for the purpose of ‘fishing’ for information without any idea of what might be revealed.”

The ICO guidance provides the following examples of a ‘fishing expedition’ request which may fall under section 14(1) if it:

- Imposes a burden by obliging the authority to sift through a substantial volume of information to isolate and extract the relevant details;

- Encompasses information which is only of limited value because of the wide scope of the request;

- Creates a burden by requiring the authority to spend a considerable amount of time considering any exemptions and redactions.

Our view is that all three of these examples apply in this instance. You have asked for copies of all the daily reviews for the Metropolitian line for a period of nearly five months. To answer your request we would need to manually retrieve each daily report and review it to ensure there was no sensitive information which should not be disclosed. By its nature, we feel this wide ranging and non-specific request will very likely encompass information which is only of limited value. In that respect, it is noteworthy that your request does not seem to be related to any specific incident or issue.

If you would like to re-submit a more focused, specific request then we will, of course, consider it. For example, a request for information on a particular, specific, subject relating to the Metropolitan line, over a limited period of time is less likely to raise concerns about the disproportionate effort required to answer it.

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

Back to top

---