Request ID: FOI-2133-2122 Date published: 13 January 2022
You asked
How many members of staff in the last year in the IM department have done or are doing reduced hours due to illness after contracting covid or post covid or long covid.
Clarification: IM = Information Management
We answered
TfL Refs: FOI-2119-2122, FOI-2132-2122, FOI-2122-2122 and FOI-2133-2122
Thank you for your requests of 14th and17th December 2021 - detailed below this email - asking for information about TfL staff returning to work after sickness.
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. However, I am afraid that it is not possible to source all of the information to answer all of your questions within the costs limit for responding to FOI cases as set out under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. Under section 12, TfL is not obliged to provide information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if it is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract that infromation from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work. For the purposes of calculating costs, any requests from the same applicant asking for the same or similar information received within any period of 60 consecutive working days can be aggregated - which applies in this instance given all of the four questions relate to TfL staff returning to work after sickness. The reason the exemption applies is because there is no quick or efficient way of sourcing the data requested. The information is not necessarily held centrally and would require the input of individual managers at the local level to give comprehensive answers. Given the number of staff involved this is not achievable within the costs limit. That said, I can provide you with the data below, based on what is held centrally by our HR team. However, note that it is possible that local arrangements were in place between staff and management that were not recorded centrally.
Under case reference 2119-2122 you asked: “How many members of staff in the last year in the HR department have done or are doing reduced hours due to illness after contracting covid or post covid or long covid.” There were no changes to working schedules or hours recorded on our central reporting system.
Under case reference 2133-2122 you asked: “How many members of staff in the last year in the Information Management department have done or are doing reduced hours due to illness after contracting covid or post covid or long covid.” There were no changes to working schedules or hours recorded on our central reporting system.
Under case reference 2132-2122 you asked: “How many members of staff in the last year in the Legal department have done or are doing reduced hours due to illness after contracting covid or post covid or long covid.” Our central reporting system has a record of 1 person who decreased their working hours by 1 hour in July 2021. It is not recorded whether this was specifically related to Covid.
Under case reference 2122-2122 you asked: “How many train drivers in the Piccadilly line were given light duties when they went back to work? What did the light duties entail? How long have they been doing these light duties?” This was subsequently clarified as follows: “Went back to work, meaning from being at home recovering from sickness to work again in another capacity. In the last 18 months.”
There are 530 Train Operators on the Piccadilly Line. We do not have a way of individually determining which Train Operators would have returned to Temporary Duties after sickness as such decisions are recorded locally. It is not possible to source this information without reviewing induvial records for each staff member, which is not possible within the costs limit.
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,
David Wells FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
