Dear Sir/Madam I am writing in respect of Round 1 of the street space funding scheme, ran by TfL between late May and 8 July. Please can you provide the following information in relation to this: 1. Please describe in full how the schemes were scored and ranked after receipt from Boroughs to differentiate between those schemes which were given funding and those which were declined. An explanation as to what happens from receipt of an application to a final decision would be useful. 2. Where Boroughs are scored as a whole based on their submitted schemes please provide a list of Boroughs and the score for each 3. Please provide a full breakdown of individual schemes submitted by borough and the scores for each scheme against individual criteria, including how they ranked across London or a particular grouping 4. Where Boroughs have aggregated schemes (eg ‘London Borough X school streets’ or ’Space at Town Centres Phase 1’) please provide a breakdown of the individual components of that scheme (so for example for a bulk for which ‘school streets’ were applied for a list of schools in that borough for which school streets were asked for) and if possible how these scored individually 5. Please explain how bulk scheme submissions such as those in area (4) were scored given the variation in potential benefits within one particular bulk 6. For each of the unsuccessful schemes please provide a reason as to why these were unsuccessful 7. What safeguards were made to ensure fairness in the approach across each of the London Boroughs and the need for different types of scheme in outer London when compared to inner London? 8. In the scoring process how qualified were the staff assessing the schemes and how did TfL ensure the independence of those assessors from particular schemes or party political preferences? 9. In respect of Round 2 of the street space funding will TfL accept submissions of schemes previously rejected in Round 1? How will the criteria for Round 2 vary in comparison to Round 1? In responding to the FOI request I expect the scope of this to include all six tranches including the final tranche announced on 8 July. If the scope of point (3) means this would exceed the FOI limit in terms of time spent to answer, I would accept more aggregated information ie final scores as opposed to each individual area (if this is indeed how they were scored)

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Our ref: FOI-0575-2021/GH 

 

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 5 July 2020 asking for information about the Streetspace funding scheme. 

 

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. 

 

Details around what the targeted areas for achieving a successful bid are all provided on the LSP guidance web page: 

 

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/boroughs-and-communities/streetspace-funding 

 

We do intend to publish information regarding the successful bids and amounts in the near future. However, to provide the detailed 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’. 

 

You have asked for detailed information on all of the Streetspace bids submitted by boroughs. We have received over 800 bids for funding, and therefore to provide this detailed information would take in excess of 18 hours to compile.  

 

Much of the information regarding the scoring process would also be exempt from disclosure as the process is still ongoing as we have recently invited more bids for the DfT tranche 2 funding.  

 

Information about bids submitted by individual Boroughs has been provided in response to a number of recent FOIs which will be published on our FOI page: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/search  

 

To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you.  

 

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. 

 

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 

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