Between 2013 to 2019, how many complaints did TfL receive about taxi and private hire vehicle drivers being unable to communicate in English? Please search using the keywords “English” and “accent” and filter the results to make sure they refer to situations in which a passenger could not communicate in English with their driver. Can you please select the first five such complaints from 2018 and provide me with full details of the complaint? I understand private details will need to be redacted. Finally, can you please tell me how many applications for taxi and private hire vehicles were rejected having failed to meet the newly introduced English language requirement since its introduction in October 2016? Please state how many of these rejected applications were attempted renewals of licences and how many were first time applicants.

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Our Ref:         FOI-1120-1920

Thank you for your request received on 16 July 2019 asking for information about taxi and private hire drivers.

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

Between 2013 to 2019, how many complaints did TfL receive about taxi and private hire vehicle drivers being unable to communicate in English? Please search using the keywords “English” and “accent” and filter the results to make sure they refer to situations in which a passenger could not communicate in English with their driver.

Can you please select the first five such complaints from 2018 and provide me with full details of the complaint? I understand private details will need to be redacted.

Unfortunately, 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 over £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take in excess of 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.

We have carried out a search using the terms ‘English’ and ‘accent’ for cases relating to only ‘Taxi’ and ‘Private Hire’ areas. This resulted in 630 results, please note that this is for data from July 2017 onwards as this is the only complaints data we can access due to a change in reporting system. We do not categorise taxi and private hire customer complaint data by a drivers’ perceived accent or ability to communicate in English. The only way to determine which of these are captured by your request is to review each case, and this would be a subjective reading of what constituted an inability to communicate effectively in English. It should also be noted, that even if we were able to identify the complaints we would not be able to confirm whether the drivers mentioned in these complaints were confirmed to have poor English as a driver may have failed to understand the customer for other reasons, such as being unable to hear the customer.

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 period. If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by Transport for London.

Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does not have to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request.

Finally, can you please tell me how many applications for taxi and private hire vehicles were rejected having failed to meet the newly introduced English language requirement since its introduction in October 2016? Please state how many of these rejected applications were attempted renewals of licences and how many were first time applicants.

We have not rejected any application as private hire drivers have up until 30 September 2020 to provide evidence that they meet the regulation. Further information is available on our website: https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/english-language-requirement.

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

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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