Thank you for your requests - detailed below - received by TfL on 4th October 2021, 8th October 2021 and 11th October 2021 about London buses. Your requests have been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
We note that these three requests are further to six earlier requests all received since 31st July 2021, referenced as follows:
FOI-0950-2122, received 31st July 2021 FOI-1087-2122, received 23rd August 2021 FOI-1138-2122, received 27th August 2021 FOI-1177-2122, received 2nd September 2021 FOI-1381-2122, received 29th September 2021 FOI-1423-2122, received 4th October 2021
In total, therefore, we have received 9 separate FOI requests from you in a period of around 10 weeks. Most of these requests are about local, operational issues in relation to London buses.
Your three outstanding requests are being refused under section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act, which provides an exemption to the disclosure of information where answering requests will impose a disproportionate burden on the responding authority. In reaching this conclusion we have drawn on guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), both in relation to the specific application of section 14 and in relation to FOI-handling more generally.
As you can see, 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 public authority may take into account the context and history of the request, where this is relevant”;
“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”;
The guidance includes some specific indicators to help public authorities judge whether or not a case should be considered under section 14. This includes the following:
“Frequent or overlapping requests: the requester submits frequent correspondence about the same issue or sends in new requests before the public authority has had an opportunity to address their earlier enquiries”.
“Disproportionate effort: the matter being pursued by the requester is relatively trivial and the authority would have to extend a disproportionate amount of resources in order to meet the request.”
Considering each of your requests in isolation it is unlikely that we would find that any of them would meet the criteria outlined under this guidance. However, the guidance also makes it clear that public authorities should take into account the ‘context and history’ in which a request is made, and that this will “…often be a major factor in determining whether the request is vexatious”. This part of the guidance goes on to say that:
“In practice this means taking account of:
Other requests made by the requester to that public authority (whether complied or refused).
The number and subject matter of those requests”, and;
“A request which would not normally be regarded as vexatious in isolation may assume that quality once considered in context. An example of this would be where an individual is placing a significant strain on an authority’s resources by submitting a long and frequent series of requests, and the most recent request, although not obviously vexatious in itself, is contributing to that aggregated burden”.
It is this ‘aggregated burden’ that is central to our decision to apply the exemption. Given the number of requests you have submitted over a short period (virtually one a week for 10 weeks) we believe the threshold for applying section 14(1) has been met. The cumulative effect of these requests is that it ultimately provides a sustained burden and disruption to our colleagues across the organisation whose principal function is the running of transport services or the support services required to make that happen. While your requests no doubt relate to matters that are of a personal interest, we do not see that they carry any particular wider public interest. Responding to them requires the re-allocation and diversion of our resources and places a burden on a small number of personnel. All of this leads us to believe that answering your latest requests is not a justified and proportionate use of our time.
Please be assured that our application of the section 14 exemption does not reflect a conclusion that it has been your deliberate intention to place an undue burden on TfL, and we will consider any future request for information on its merits and in accordance with the requirements of the FOI Act and the expectations of the ICO. However, in making any future request I would ask that you consider carefully what information is of most importance to you, and to take into account the guidance and advice provided by the ICO on how best to access information from public bodies, such as the “dos and don’ts” published on its website here: https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/official-information/
You will note that the table halfway down that page includes the following advice to FOI applicants:
Do….“Give the authority ample opportunity to address any previous requests you have made before submitting new ones”; Don’t… “Submit frivolous or trivial requests; remember that processing any information request involves some cost to the public purse”; Don’t… “Disrupt a public authority by the sheer volume of information requested. Whether you are acting alone or in concert with others, this is a clear misuse of the Act and an abuse of your ‘right to know’”.
We would therefore encourage you to prioritise any future requests around the information that is of most importance to you to ensure that you are able to make the best use of our resources under the FOI Act.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
