Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) 2000 could you please advise me of all details you hold on the following : 1. The number of PHV licences issued by TFL which have been revoked as a direct result of the licence holder having been found to have carried out a rape,sexual assault or similar in the period covering 31/5/2012 to 12/7/2017. 2. The number of Licensed London Taxi Driver (i.e black cab) licences issued by TFL which have been revoked as a direct result of the licence holder having been found to have carried out a rape,sexual assault or similar in the period covering 31/5/2012 to 12/7/2017.

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TfL Ref: FOI-0877-1718

Thank you for your email received on 12 July asking for information about taxi and private hire licence revocations. Please accept my apologies for the delay in our response.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our Information Access Policy. I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. You asked for:

“1. The number of PHV licences issued by TFL which have been revoked as a direct result of the licence holder having been found to have carried out a rape, sexual assault or similar in the period covering 31/5/2012 to 12/7/2017.

2. The number of Licensed London Taxi Driver (i.e black cab) licences issued by TFL which have been revoked as a direct result of the licence holder having been found to have carried out a rape, sexual assault or similar in the period covering 31/5/2012 to 12/7/2017.”

Please be aware that where a suspect is a TfL licensed taxi or private hire driver, and we are notified by the police of an allegation, we will immediately assess whether there is a risk to public safety. We may immediately suspend a driver's licence prior to a charge or conviction, if we believe the individual is not 'fit and proper' based on the initial evidence. The driver will remain suspended until we receive the results of the police investigation and any court outcomes.

In some cases, we may cancel a driver's licence immediately, irrespective of the results of the police investigation and subsequent court proceedings.

TfL holds the data you have requested, in a reportable format, from 31 May 2014. TfL has revoked 25 private hire driver licences between 31 May 2014 and 12 July 2017 as a result of a driver being convicted of a sexual offence. In the same period, four taxi drivers have been convicted and their licences revoked.

Please be aware that the figures below are indicative of the year the driver’s licence was revoked by TfL and not the year the driver was convicted of an offence.

Year	Number of private hire driver licences revoked
2014	2
2015	4
2016	11
2017*	8
Total	25

Year	Number of taxi driver licences revoked
2014	0
2015	2
2016	0
2017*	2
Total	4

* up to and including 12 July 2017.

To ensure the safety of the travelling public, taxi and private hire drivers must meet a range of strict criteria to ensure they are of good character. This is assessed on the basis of an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check submitted as part of a licence application, information provided by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and any other information that comes to our attention. This includes information received from other licensing authorities, the police or from private hire operators.

Licensed drivers are also obliged to notify us within 21 days if they have been disqualified from driving or have been cautioned, charged, or convicted of any criminal offence. This requirement is clearly stated in the letter that accompanies all driver licences.

Following a system upgrade in 2014, we have been able to better categorise and report on driver licence revocations. To provide information prior to this date would require us to manually check several hundred driver records to establish the reason why a licence was revoked.

To provide this information 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.

Further details can be found by visiting our website www.tfl.gov.uk/tph.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

Senior FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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