Our Ref:         FOI-0542-2021

Thank you for your request received on 2 July 2020 asking for information about construction and engineering service contractors.

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.

Your request relates to a significant number of TfL’s contracts across various teams. We are unable to determine how much of the requested information we hold as it is not held centrally. This information, particularly that related to subcontracts, is held by several individual procurement teams who would all need to identify, locate, and extract the requested information.

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. For example, you might consider limiting your request to specific departments of the organisation.

Please note that we already publish information on suppliers, contracts and expenditure on the TfL website here:

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/#on-this-page-4

You may wish to take a look at the published information to help you narrow your request.

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.

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.

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 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.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob
Senior FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
[email protected]