TfL Ref: 1788-1819

Thank you for your email received by us on 5 October 2018 asking for information about direct appointments made by Transport for London (TfL), Surface Transport and London Underground Limited from 2014 to date.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. You asked for:

a list of direct appointments made by TfL, Surface Transport and London Underground limited from 2014 to date.

Can you please provide this information by Directorate, Role Title, Payband 1 - 3 and state if the direct appointment was classified as a scarce resource and signed off at Director level or ExCo Board.

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. This is because determining whether a direct appointment was classified as a scarce resource requires reading through each individual form, which would then need to be collated and formatted for disclosure. Some direct appointments are processed to convert longstanding secondees into permanent positions or fixed term contracts for example.

In reference to sign-offs for direct appointments, I can advise that direct appointment forms require the review and signature of the relevant Human Resources Business Partner, the Director or relevant Managing Director of the business area and also the Human Resources Director. We cannot process any direct appointments that do not have these signatures attached to them.

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.

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. 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. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, excluding whether the appointment was as a result of scarce resource or focus on specific departments of the organisation.

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.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
Information Governance
Transport For London