FOI request detail

LUL Station Nominations

Request ID: FOI-2317-2223
Date published: 16 January 2023

You asked
London Underground Customer Service Assistants and other station grades have a station preferencing/nomination facility, where they can set multiple stations. I understand this acts as a waiting list, and once the nominating person reaches 0 on one of the nominated stations, they will be moved. This request is regarding this facility. My request is for the following information: 1) How long were the waiting lists for all London Underground stations on Janurary 1st of all years from 2010 until Janurary 1st 2022? If this is too costly, I will accept from 2018. 2) I do not know how you hold this information, so I may need to amend this request, but how many movements have been made to and from all London Underground stations since 2018? I am effectively looking for the amount of staff throughput. 3) Which station do station staff stay at the shortest, from when they started at that station (from training, a successful nomination, or otherwise), until when they submit new nominations, or if that is unknown, until they are moved again? Clarification received 15/12/2022: I have amended my request to make it clearer, apologies. 1) How long were the waiting lists, annually on January the 1st, for all London Underground stations from January 2010 until Janurary 2022? 2) If not shown from the prior question, how many movements have been made to and from all London Underground stations since 2010? I am effectively looking for the amount of staff throughput. 3) If not shown in the prior questions, which station do station staff stay at the shortest, from when they started at that station (from training, a successful nomination, or otherwise), until when they submit new nominations, or if that is unknown, until they are moved again?

We answered

TfL Ref: FOI-2317-2223

Thank you for your request of 12th December 2022 - as clarified on 15th December 2022 - asking for information about LUL station nominations.

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. Your questions are answered in turn below, to the extent that we can:

Question 1) How long were the waiting lists, annually on January the 1st, for all London Underground stations from January 2010 until January 2022?

Answer: TfL does not hold this information. The waiting lists are based on information as it stands today, and we are not able to reconstruct how they looked on a given date in the past.

Question 2) If not shown from the prior question, how many movements have been made to and from all London Underground stations since 2010? I am effectively looking for the amount of staff throughput.

Answer: TfL does not hold this information back to 2010. The current movement process only came into effect in 2018. From 30th June 2018 to date we have processed 4,503 movements.

Question 3) If not shown in the prior questions, which station do station staff stay at the shortest, from when they started at that station (from training, a successful nomination, or otherwise), until when they submit new nominations, or if that is unknown, until they are moved again?

Answer: This information has not been collated before, and it is not held centrally on our HR reporting system. While it may in theory be possible to gather this information from records held at the local level, given the numbers involved this is not possible within the costs limit for responding to requests as set out under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. Under section 12, TfL is not required to provide information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if that information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract it from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work. While it is difficult to say exactly how long it would take to answer the question, it would involve checking the individual records of all the relevant employees. Given the numbers involved (as demonstrated in the answer to question 2) this would comfortably exceed the costs limit.

It is possible that we may be able to provide related information from our centrally held records based on an employee’s Organisational Unit (which does not record information by station, but rather by area, such as “Uxbridge Area”, “North Greenwich Area” etc, with each area covering a multiple number of stations). However, depending on exactly what is asked it is possible that it would still exceed the costs limit to extract the information. Should you wish to reframe your request, please note that the narrower its scope (both in terms of timeframe and information covered) the more likely it is we will be able to source an answer 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
 

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