Request ID: FOI-0775-2425 Date published: 04 July 2024
You asked
Follow-on from FOI-0498-2425:
I am going to request you disclose the first 10 non-automated-notification emails identified via the search for "Project Detroit" and "resource".
Clarification:
To reduce the burden on you still further, let's go with the 5 oldest emails. They must be extremely long and unusually detailed emails, or maybe there are documentary attachments?
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-0775-2425 Thank you for your request received on 13 June 2024 asking for correspondence related to Project Detroit. 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.
However, we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the Act. We consider that providing the requested information would place an unreasonable burden on us. 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.
As previously advised, while you have limited your request significantly to only five emails, this still equates to over 460 pages of material. As suggested in your email below, the majority of this is made up of the attachments to the emails which include reports on design solutions and business operations which would all need to be reviewed to determine whether any exemptions applied.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance referred to in our previous responses regarding “fishing” still applies to your narrowed request. As you are aware from earlier correspondence, our search will return an amount of ‘hits’ which potentially contain information relating to the search terms used. Each ‘hit’ is a single email, although that email will often consist of a chain of emails containing the search term at least once. All of the emails we have identified will contain the terms ‘Project Detroit’ and ‘resource’, however we do not know in which context these terms have been used. It is possible that the material may only contain a passing unrelated reference to the terms.
Your original request was wide in scope, and though this has now been narrowed considerably, it has not been done so by potential volume rather than by subject. Therefore, even if we were able to review all of the identified material it is possible that it would be of limited value because of the nature of the search and subsequent refinements. While it meets the parameters of the request the material may have only a tenuous link to the actual area you are interested in. It remains our position that the burden of retrieving, reviewing and redacting the information would be disproportionate to the benefit of providing it.
In light of the issues we have outlined above and in previous requests, we strongly suggest that rather than request correspondence, you ask specific questions that you are seeking information on. We may be able to process these more easily. For example, if you are able to frame your queries around a specific issue such as personnel resources or equipment resources if those are the areas you are interested in.
If you have not already, you may wish to look at the requests regarding Project Detroit that we have responded to that are available on our website by searching the keyword ‘Detroit’:
