Our Ref:         FOI-1939-1718

Thank you for your request received on 17 October 2017 asking for information about complaints made about taxi and private hire vehicles (PHVs).

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and TfL’s information access policy.

I can confirm we do hold the information you require.

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would still 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.

We have estimated that it would still cost over £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take more than 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.

As previously advised, prior to 2016 we did not separately record complaints received about PHVs and taxis. I appreciate that you have now broadened your request to include all complaints so we would not have to go through these complaints to determine whether they related to PHVs or taxis. However, as previously stated we do not centrally record complaints that may have been made via other routes such as Twitter or contained within other pieces of correspondence.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope further – possibly by requesting only complaints that were recorded by our Customer Service Contact Centre. In addition, you might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time.

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.

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 feel free to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
[email protected]