Funding Cuts to Ealing Council relating to Active Travel
Request ID: FOI-1235-2122 Date published: 07 October 2021
You asked
On July 30th the Prime Minister's Special Adviser, Andrew Gilligan, announced (https://twitter.com/mragilligan/status/1421125268031348742) that Local Transport Authority Capability funds would be withdrawn from councils (including Ealing) who have prematurely withdrawn active travel schemes.
1) Please confirm the precise details of the funding cuts from Ealing Council, from this capability fund and any other central government and TfL/GLA grants that have been cut as a result of this action.
2) Please confirm any details of the formula or basis upon which funding judgements are made under this scheme.
3) Please provide details of any undertakings Ealing Council have made to meet the demands of TfL and DfT on active travel in future.
4) Please supply any correspondence related to this between TfL and Councillors and Officers of London Borough of Ealing, the Mayor of London, GLA and DfT.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-1235-2122
Thank you for your request received on 12 September 2021 asking for information about Active Travel funding to the London Borough of Ealing.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. You asked for:
• Please confirm the precise details of the funding cuts from Ealing Council, from this capability fund and any other central government and TfL/GLA grants that have been cut as a result of this action. • Please confirm any details of the formula or basis upon which funding judgements are made under this scheme. • Please provide details of any undertakings Ealing Council have made to meet the demands of TfL and DfT on active travel in future. • Please supply any correspondence related to this between TfL and Councillors and Officers of London Borough of Ealing, the Mayor of London, GLA and DfT.
We hold some of the information you have requested. We should clarify that the funding to the London Borough of Ealing has not been cut. We have not yet allocated any funds to Ealing. We wrote to them in July 2021 advising them that we need to discuss their requirements further. Please see a copy of this correspondence attached.
In accordance with our obligations under Data Protection legislation some personal data has been removed from the attached correspondence, as required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of the legislation, specifically the first principle of Article 5 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation which requires all processing of personal data to be fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions which would make the processing ‘fair’.
This exemption to the right of access to information is an absolute exemption and not subject to an assessment of whether the public interest favours use of the exemption.
The London Borough of Ealing recently held a meeting of their Cabinet that included some discussion regarding their active travel programme. The minutes of the meeting, as well as the associated documents, are available on their website:
We have been discussing with the Active Travel Oversight Group (ATOG) introduced by government as part of the last funding settlement, the borough allocations. All of the active travel funding for TfL delivery and for borough delivery, comes from this settlement. The key issues are deliverability and value for money, that investment will result in quality active travel measures. Where boroughs have removed temporary measures ATOG has concerns about whether any new measures would be delivered or retained. This is part of the ongoing discussion with ATOG in assessing the appropriate final settlement for boroughs.
• Please supply any correspondence related to this between TfL and Councillors and Officers of London Borough of Ealing, the Mayor of London, GLA and DfT.
Unfortunately, to provide the information you with the additional correspondence 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 in excess of £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
As stated above, we have had continued discussions regarding the funding allocation. This information has not been recorded centrally and will often form part of wider more general discussions. As such any search we conducted would have to be very broad for terms such as ‘funding’ and ‘active travel’ in order to ensure we captured all of the relevant information.
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 providing a specific timeframe or terms that would you would like us to search for. 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.
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 note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.
In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.
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
