FOI request detail

Driver dismissals

Request ID: FOI-1179-1718
Date published: 12 October 2017

You asked

When a private hire operator dismisses a ph hire driver they must inform TFL within 14 days, could you inform me from 01/04/16 to 31/03/17 how many driver dismissal notifications did TFL receive from PH operators & if costs permit a breakdown of numbers per operator (with names of operators)

We answered

Thank you for your email received on 15 August 2017 asking for information about Private Hire (PH) driver dismissals.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our Information Access Policy. You asked:

When a private hire operator dismisses a ph hire driver they must inform TFL within 14 days, could you inform me from 01/04/16 to 31/03/17 how many driver dismissal notifications did TFL receive from PH operators & if costs permit a breakdown of numbers per operator (with names of operators)

In the time period stipulated, Transport for London (TfL) received 390 PHV/105 notification of driver dismissal forms notifying TfL of a driver’s dismissal. Driver dismissal forms are recorded against the driver licence record and note the operator licensee who submitted the form.

Provision of the information you have requested on the number of dismissals per operator would require a manual search of each driver record. The collation of this data 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 considerably exceed the limit to provide a complete response to your current request.

To help bring the cost of responding to this part of 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. 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 us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, geographical area or specific departments of the organisation.

Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do 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.

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

Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
Information Governance
Transport For London

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