Dear Transport for London, I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information. Please can you tell me for the last two calendar years (2019-2020): a) How many incidents of graffiti on bus stop shelters were reported for cleaning? b) Of those, how many were anti-covid, anti-vaccine and covid misinformation? c) How many incidents of graffiti in tube stations were reported for cleaning? d) Of those, how many were anti-covid, anti-vaccine and covid misinformation? e) Please can you provide a breakdown per month of a) to d) above? f) How much did TfL spend to remove graffiti in 2019? g) How much did TfL spend to remove graffiti in 2020? h) What was the cost to TfL to remove anti-covid, anti-vaccine and covid misinformation graffiti? Please provide the information in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. If you can identify any ways that my request could be refined, I would be grateful for any further advice and assistance. If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact me via email or phone and I will be very happy to clarify what I am asking for and discuss the request. Please confirm receipt of the request. Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.

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TfL Ref: FOI-1972-2021

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 4 January 2021.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.  I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. You asked:

Please can you tell me for the last two calendar years (2019-2020):

1. How many incidents of graffiti on bus stop shelters were reported for cleaning?

There were 32,605 incidents of graffiti cleaning in 2019 and 15,349 incidents in 2020. Please find more details in the attached spreadsheets.

Please note the figures for graffiti cleaning include bus shelters, bus stops and traffic signals owned by TfL. We do not record them separately.

b) Of those, how many were anti-covid, anti-vaccine and covid misinformation?

We do not record this level of detail therefore we don’t hold the information you require.

1. How many incidents of graffiti in tube stations were reported for cleaning?

There were 790 incidents of graffiti cleaning at LU stations in 2019 and 752 incidents in 2020.

In addition, there were 53 incidents of vandalism/graffiti on advertising posters at London Underground (LU) stations in 2019, and 33 in 2020.

d) Of those, how many were anti-covid, anti-vaccine and covid misinformation?

We do not record this level of detail and therefore do not hold the information you require.

e) Please can you provide a breakdown per month of a) to d) above?

Please see attached.

f) How much did TfL spend to remove graffiti in 2019?

g) How much did TfL spend to remove graffiti in 2020?

Regarding graffiti removal at LU stations, we are not able to break down costs for removing graffiti from other cleaning and maintenance activities carried out by our cleaning team as part of their normal duties. Much of the graffiti cleaning work is combined with all the other cleaning taking place. There are also related costs, which can be partly attributable to deterring graffiti vandals, but also serve more generally to provide security to London Underground equipment and property. These costs would include fencing, CCTV, and security staff.

Regarding graffiti removal cost at bus shelters, this information is exempt from disclosure under section 43(2) – commercial interests of the FOI Act.

Disclosure of this information would be likely to harm our commercial interests on the basis that it would encourage an increase in graffiti activity. This would clearly carry a financial impact to TfL in terms of cleaning, repairs or any other additional preventative measures that may need to be taken, as well as increased future contract costs.

We believe the disclosure of graffiti removal cost would add to the motivation within the graffiti community. International research carried out by well-known criminologist, Dr Tim Pascoe, identified that “…doing as much damage as possible and getting away scot free…” (a quotation from a graffiti vandal produced as a part of the research) is a key driver for graffiti vandalism on the transport network, and as such any confirmation of the financial effects of the vandalism would be likely to actually result in higher attrition rates.

The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. TfL recognises the need for openness and transparency by public authorities but in this instance the public interest in ensuring that TfL is able to make the best use of public money outweighs the general public interest in increasing transparency of our information.

h) What was the cost to TfL to remove anti-covid, anti-vaccine and covid misinformation graffiti?

We do not record this level of detail and therefore do not hold the information you require.

If you are considering submitting a further request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI/EIR 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.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, 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

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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