Can you please confirm whether TfL TPH has ever given Hailo, MyTaxi or FreeNow any official authority to allow taxi drivers to charge passengers more than the metered fare when a passenger orders a taxi via the mentioned app companies. I would ask that this question is answered with 10 business days as per TfL Policy. Can I please make an FOI request for all advice (incliding legal advice) provided to Hailo, MyTaxi or FreeNow by the TfL TPH department in regards to charging minimum fares

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TfL Refs: FOI-1866-1920 and FOI-1985-1920

Thank you for your emails received by us on 19 September and 1 October 2019 respectively asking for information about Taxi and Private Hire (TPH).

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 requested. You asked:

FOI-1866-1920

Can you please confirm whether TfL TPH has ever given Hailo, MyTaxi or FreeNow any official authority to allow taxi drivers to charge passengers more than the metered fare when a passenger orders a taxi via the mentioned app companies. Can I please make an FOI request for all advice (incliding legal advice) provided to Hailo, MyTaxi or FreeNow by the TfL TPH department in regards to charging minimum fares.

FOI-1985-1920

Can I please ask TfL for all emails/ correspondence between TPH and Jas Sandhu for the last 12 months that make reference to MyTaxi or Freenow.

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. 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. Furthermore, section 12(4)(a) of the Act provides for the costs of complying with two or more requests made in a 60 working day period which are, to any extent, for the same or similar information to be combined. Section 12(4)(b) provides for requests made by different people acting in concert, or in pursuance of a campaign to be considered together under section 12.

We have conducted preliminary searches for the information requested in the two requests above and this has produced over 500 ‘hits’. A hit refers to an email (or email chain) located by the relevant search criteria. From a brief review it is highly likely the vast majority of these would not be relevant to your request and, particularly, many of these hits will actually be emails sent from yourself to TfL which have fallen within the search criteria. However we would need to manually review each individual email to locate and collate those that are relevant to the request. It is also possible that further searches would need to be conducted to ensure that we can be certain we have conducted as thorough a search as possible to determine what, if any, information we hold in relation to your requests.

The process of reviewing such a large number of hits, as well as reviewing any further searches necessary to ensure all recorded information is collated, would exceed the cost limit described above and so we are refusing these two requests.

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. You may find it more beneficial to request specific recorded information rather than broad correspondence requests as this is less likely to generate concerns around the processing time and the potential collation of a lot of information that may not be of significant value to you.

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, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a narrowed period of time, or specific individuals within 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.

  

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.

Yours sincerely

Melissa Nichols

FOI Case Officer

Information Governance

Transport For London

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