Control Risks
Request ID: FOI-1316-1920
Date published: 30 August 2019
You asked
My request relates to work which was carried out by a security firm, Control Risks, for Crossrail.
Crossrail has said previously that :“As part of its security planning between 2010 and 2013, Crossrail Ltd appointed Control Risks to assess external threats to the project, including, for example, terrorist threats, criminal threats and threats from direct action. Control Risks identified information that was available publicly, analysed that information and produced reports on the information that was relevant to the Crossrail project.”Crossrail paid Control Risks £11,309 in 2011 and £47,857 in 2014.
Under the act, I would like to request complete copies of documents which relate to the decisions to hire Control Risks in 2010 and 2013. I understand that Chris Sexton, in his role as Crossrail’s technical director between 2010 and 2018, would have authorised the work carried out by Control Risks. This request includes any documents related to this authorisation by Mr Sexton.
I understand that as part of this work, Control Risks submitted regular reports to Crossrail updating managers on the progress of their work.
Under the act, I would like to request complete copies of these regular reports from Control Risks to Crossrail between 2010 and 2013.
Under the act, I would like to ask if Crossrail has hired any other security firm to conduct similar work to the work conducted by Control Risks since the work by Control Risks ended in 2013. If this was the case, I would like to ask which firms were hired, how much has been paid to them and when.
I would also like to ask Crossrail on answering this request to provide a schedule of documents which are relevant to this request. I believe that there should be a brief description of each relevant document including the nature of the document, the date of the document, and whether the document is being released or not. I believe that providing such a schedule would clarify what documents are being released and what is being withheld, and would also represent best practice in open government.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-1316-1920
Thank you for your request received on 1 August 2019 asking for information about Control Risks.
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 hold some of the information you require.
I can confirm that we do not hold any documents which relate to the decisions to hire Control Risks or any documents related to authorisation by Chris Sexton. We also do not hold a schedule of documents which would be relevant to this request. We have not appointed any other security firms to conduct similar work to that conducted by Control Risks.
Unfortunately, to provide the reports submitted by Control Risks to Crossrail 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 over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
The reports are not stored or indexed centrally, in order to locate them we would need to carry out a search of Crossrail’s email archive in order to find and extract the reports that were sent to Crossrail by Control Risks. As you have requested reports from 2010-2013, this could potentially be a large number of emails that would all need to be reviewed in order to determine if they contained any 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 narrowing the timeframe requested. 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.
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 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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