Request ID: FOI-1202-2122 Date published: 28 September 2021
You asked
I would like to make an FOI request for information relating to the following framework agreement:
Services - 100372-2016 - TED Tenders Electronic Daily (europa.eu)
• Please can you provide the names of the suppliers who submitted bids for the TfL 91640 Contact Services Framework in 2016
• Can you please provide copies of the quality submissions for the successful bids
• Please can you also provide the commercial submissions of the successful suppliers
If any of this information is outside the scope of the FOIA or exceeds the costs permitted by the FOIA, please answer what you can.
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-1202-2122
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 3rd September 2021 asking for information about the Tenders Electronic Daily framework agreement.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
I can confirm that we hold the information you require. Your questions are answered in turn below: Question 1: Please can you provide the names of the suppliers who submitted bids for the TfL 91640 Contact Services Framework in 2016 Answer: Capita, Journeycall and Charles Novacroft. Question 2: Can you please provide copies of the quality submissions for the successful bids? And; Question 3: Please can you also provide the commercial submissions of the successful suppliers? The information is exempt from disclosure under section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act. Section 14 applies where responding to a request is likely to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress to the authority concerned. In reaching this conclusion we have drawn on guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which can be found on its website here:
https://ico.org.uk/media/1198/dealing-with-vexatious-requests.pdf You will note that this guidance includes the following advice to public authorities: “Section 14(1) may be used in a variety of circumstances where a request, or its impact on a public authority, cannot be justified. Whilst public authorities should think carefully before refusing a request as vexatious they should not regard section 14(1) as something which is only to be applied in the most extreme circumstances”; “Sometimes a request may be so patently unreasonable or objectionable that it will obviously be vexatious….In cases where the issue is not clear-cut, the key question to ask is whether the request is likely to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress…This will usually be a matter of objectively judging the evidence of the impact on the authority and weighing this against any evidence about the purpose and value of the request”; “The information Commissioner recognises that dealing with unreasonable requests can place a strain on resources and get in the way of delivering mainstream services or answering legitimate requests.” “Section 14(1) is designed to protect public authorities by allowing them to refuse any requests which have the potential to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation or distress”. “…the concepts of ‘proportionality’ and ‘justification’ are central to any consideration of whether a request is vexatious”; In this case, it is the sheer volume of information that falls within the scope of the requests that has led to the application of the exemption. The submissions in question contain large amounts of confidential and sensitive information, particularly (but not exclusively) in regard to finances and commercial interests. In order to release the documents in question we would therefore need to review the material on a line by line, page by page basis to consider where exactly exemptions rightfully apply and, where they do, to then redact the exempt material. The main documents themselves contain hundreds of pages, and there are appendices to these which are larger still, meaning overall the material in question is well over a thousand pages. It is not clear what wider public value release of these redacted documents would offer, and given the amount of work that would be required to review and redact them we believe the criteria of section 14 are met, in that the effort involved would be disproportionate and represent an unjustified level of disruption. However, in the interests of transparency we can provide you with the full ITT documentation for Batches 1-3, which is attached, and which will hopefully be of interest. 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.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
