Request ID: FOI-0961-2122 Date published: 27 August 2021
You asked
F/on from FOI-1744
Dear FOI Tram,
Further to this previous FOI, please advise if clarification to this requires a new FOI or can be treated as a continuation of this one.
With regards to the following statement from your FOI response:
(“ Sam has not had any other recorded communication with any of the individuals or groups you have requested.
I can advise that there has not been any communications between Sam Monck and Stephen Mann regarding this LTN, either in Stephen’s TfL position or in his role as a Councillor. I can further advise that TfL holds no information showing correspondence between Stephen Mann and any of the other individuals or groups listed in your request.”)
Could you please confirm:
1) the statement includes no email communication either.
2) Also no one from Sam Monk’s team either has had communication with the previously stated parties.
We answered
Our ref: FOI-0961-2122/GH Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 6 August 2021 asking for information about email communications. Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. Could you please confirm:
the statement includes no email communication either.
I can confirm that the statement in our previous response includes emails – no such emails are held.
Also no one from Sam Monk’s team either has had communication with the previously stated parties.
We do not believe that there have been any relevant communications between anyone within Sam Monck’s team and the parties you have listed. Any such communication would have included Sam, and as previously advised, no such communications involving Sam are held. The team consists of approximately 60 people and in order to verify this we would need to carry out separate email searches of all 60 individuals, with each of the parties you have named. This would create a huge burden on our resources, and is highly unlikely to produce any results.
The Information Commissioner describes requests which ask for ‘all emails’ as “fishing expeditions” as the requesters “have no idea what information, if any, will be caught by the request”. Such requests are likely to be vexatious if they:
Impose a burden by obliging the authority to sift through a substantial volume of information to isolate and extract the relevant details;
Encompass information which is only of limited value because of the wide scope of the request;
Create a burden by requiring the authority to spend a considerable amount of time considering any exemptions and redactions;
Be part of a pattern of persistent fishing expeditions by the same requester.
If you have any specific concerns, we suggest you advise us exactly what information you are looking for, as requests for all emails/communications are likely to be refused. 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
