Request ID: FOI-1615-2223 Date published: 31 October 2022
You asked
I would like to see the original documentation confirming that the vehicle's For Hire light would comply with the Conditions of Fitness. Ideally this would detail when and where the certification took place, and which officer posts were involved.
I'd also like to see any and all subsequent correspondence between TfL and LEVC relating to the light.
Thanks.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-1615-2223
Thank you for your request received on 5 October 2022 asking for information about the LEVC TXe ‘For Hire’ light.
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 do hold the information you require. You asked:
I would like to see the original documentation confirming that the vehicle's For Hire light would comply with the Conditions of Fitness. Ideally this would detail when and where the certification took place, and which officer posts were involved.
Please find the requested document attached.
In accordance with our obligations under Data Protection legislation some personal data has been removed, 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.
I'd also like to see any and all subsequent correspondence between TfL and LEVC relating to the light.
We are refusing this part of your request under section 14(1) of the Act. We have carried out an initial search for correspondence and identified over 280 emails that are captured by your request. A wider search would need to be carried out to try and determine whether there is any more correspondence captured. We consider that it would be a considerable effort to conduct further speculative searches as no context has been specified. We would then need to review, extract, and redact any when much of it is likely to be very general and low-interest material due to the wide and unfocused scope of your request.
Our principal duty is to provide an effective transport service for London and we consider that answering this request would represent a disproportionate effort. It would be a significant distraction from our work managing the TfL network, requiring re-allocation of already limited resources and placing an unacceptable burden on a small number of personnel. We do wish to clarify that whilst we consider that your request falls under section 14(1) of the FOI Act, this does not reflect a conclusion that it has been your intention to deliberately place an undue burden on our resources.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance states that one of the indicators of a request which may fall under section 14(1) is that it “appears to be part of a completely random approach, lacks any clear focus, or seems to have been solely designed for the purpose of ‘fishing’ for information without any idea of what might be revealed.”
The ICO guidance provides the following examples of a ‘fishing expedition’ request which may fall under section 14(1) if it:
• Imposes a burden by obliging the authority to sift through a substantial volume of information to isolate and extract the relevant details; • Encompasses information which is only of limited value because of the wide scope of the request; • Creates a burden by requiring the authority to spend a considerable amount of time considering any exemptions and redactions.
Our view is that all three of these examples apply in this instance.
Therefore, due to the wide and unfocused scope of your request, we are refusing it under s.14 of the FOI Act. If you would like to re-submit a more focused, specific request then we will, of course, consider it. For example, a request for information on a particular or specific issue with the lights that we could carry a search out against is less likely to raise concerns about the disproportionate effort required to answer it.
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
