FOI request detail

Grievances raised regarding in house racism

Request ID: FOI-0732-2021
Date published: 21 August 2020

You asked

How many Grievances have been raised by London Underground staff regarding racism from fellow colleagues in the last 5 years? Of these cases how many resulted in the accused staff member being dismissed (sacked)?

We answered

  

Our Ref: FOI-0732-2021 

  

Thank you for your request received on 3 August 2020 asking for information about grievances regarding racism. 

  

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require.  

  

Transport for London (TfL) values the contribution of all its employees and aims to ensure employees and applicants for employment are treated fairly, equally and with respect and dignity. TfL is committed to ensuring that these values are enshrined throughout its policies, strategies, processes and practices. We seek to address any inequalities and eliminate unlawful discrimination in the workplace. We will continue to embed good equality practice into all of our policies and procedures as an employer and a service provider in line with the Equality Act 2010. 

  

All employees are required to display and encourage in others a behaviour that contributes to an environment where everyone is treated fairly, equally and with dignity and respect, and ensure that their behaviour at work does not discriminate against or harass others. Any employee who fails to do so may be subject to TfL’s Discipline at Work Procedure, which may result in summary dismissal.  

 

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. 

  

We do not record the information you have requested centrally. In order to collate the requested information we would have to look at all of the grievance cases that have been made over the last five years, many of which will have more than one underlying factor. We would need to individually review each case to ascertain if it related to any form of racism. If this was a case sent to disciplinary, then the process would need to be replicated within the disciplinary documentation we hold. 

  

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, by narrowing the time limit. Please note however that in the last financial year there were 272 individual grievance cases for any reason, so even this timeframe could lead to concerns regarding the time taken to respond.  

  

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 feel free to contact me. 

  

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.  

Yours sincerely  

Gemma Jacob 

Senior FOI Case Officer 

FOI Case Management Team 

General Counsel 

Transport for London 

[email protected] 

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