TfL Ref: 2025-2425
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 23 September 2024 asking for information about the number of requests refused under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
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 the information you require. You specifically asked:
TfL’s overall performance in managing Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests can be found at the following link: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-performance
Over the 2023/24 financial year, 67 per cent of the 4,540 FOI and EIR requests received were responded to in full, with 12 per cent relying on a partial exemption and 21 per cent being refused in full due to an applicable exemption.
Section 12 of the FOI Act provides that a request for the disclosure of information can be refused where the authority estimates that the cost of complying with a request would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit is set out in Regulation 3 of the Fees Regulations and, for TfL, is set at £450. Regulation 4(4) states that the cost of the time which you expect to spend dealing with a request must be estimated at a rate of £25 per hour. This means a request would exceed the appropriate limit if complying would take more than 18 hours. More information on this can be found at the following link: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi/freedom-of-information-and-environmental-information-regulations/section-12-requests-where-the-cost-of-compliance-exceeds-the-appropriate-limit/
The number of FOI requests processed, the number of section 12 refusals and this figure presented as a proportion of the total FOI requests processed since 2021/22 can be seen below.
| FOI requests processed | FOI requests in which s12 has applied | Proportion of cases resulting in s12 |
2021/22 | 2578 | 193 | 7.4% |
2022/23 | 3099 | 265 | 8.5% |
2023/24 | 3659 | 297 | 8.1% |
2024/25* (as at 10 October 2024) | 1579 | 122 | 7.7% |
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
Sara Thomas
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
