Request ID: FOI-1710-2425 Date published: 16 September 2024
You asked
Dear Transport for London,
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I request the following information:
- The number of accessibility related complaints you have received each calendar year from 2014 to 2024.
- Details of those accessibility related complaints, including station names, types of issues, and actions taken.
This information should be made available to me in electronic form, if possible.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-1710-2425 Thank you for your request received on 28 August 2024 asking for information about accessibility on the TfL network. Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.
I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. However, accessibility is a bit of a broad subject (which is not restricted just to disabilities), and we don’t have a ‘catch all’ way of reporting on this due to the variance of what falls under ‘accessibility’, which can be subjective. In order to answer your request we would need to look for any complaints recorded under a number of reporting categories, and then collate the information you have requested. This work 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
We are currently reviewing how we monitor accessibility complaints to ensure we can accurately track numbers as well as identify actions we can take to improve accessibility.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you.
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. If you have specific questions relating to these topics we may be more easily able to respond to these than to a request for any information held.
If you are not satisfied with this response 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]
