Our Ref:         FOI-1804-2021

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 8 December 2020 asking for a copy of the Crossrail C620 Signalling Systems contract.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require.

However, we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the Act as we consider that providing the requested information would place an unreasonable burden on us.

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 and the delivery of Crossrail, 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.

Paragraph 71 of the guidance on section 14(1) (https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1198/dealing-with-vexatious-requests.pdf) states the following:

71.       However, we consider there to be a high threshold for refusing a request on such grounds. This means that an authority is most likely to have a viable case where:
• The requester has asked for a substantial volume of information AND
• The authority has real concerns about potentially exempt information, which it will be able to substantiate if asked to do so by the ICO AND
• Any potentially exempt information cannot easily be isolated because it is scattered throughout the requested material

We further consider that all of these three elements are met.

The contract you have requested consists of several PDFs that is made up over 3600 pages and over 500 drawings. These would all have to be reviewed and any personal data redacted, alongside any other potentially exempt material.

We consider the burden of reviewing and redacting the information would be disproportionate to the benefit of providing it given the significant size of the document. Such a task would inevitably require input from specialist, limited resources across multiple areas of the organisation and constitute a significant distraction from their core functions. Therefore, due to the time it would take to undertake the necessary reviews and the diversion of critical resource, we are refusing it under section 14 of the FOI Act. If you would like to re-submit a narrower request we will consider it. For example, if you have specific questions regarding the contract we may be able to answer these.

If you are considering submitting a further FOI request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by the current situation.

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]