Freedom of Information request - Recruitment and retention: British Muslims
Request ID: FOI-2327-2122 Date published: 04 February 2022
You asked
Dear Transport for London,
1. How many British Muslim employees have you recruited? Please provide figures for every year since 2010.
2. What is the average length of service?
3. How many British Muslims have you employed in communications/media roles since 2010?
We answered
TfL Ref: 2327-2122
Thank you for your request received by us on 9 January 2022 asking for information about employee recruitment since 2010.
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 asked for the following:
1. How many British Muslim employees have you recruited? Please provide figures for every year since 2010.
2. What is the average length of service?
3. How many British Muslims have you employed in communications/media roles since 2010?
Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested with particular reference to Question Three, would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
In order to comply with your request we would need to extract and review every job description of an employee that has declared themselves as British Muslim and evaluate each of these job descriptions to see whether their role was based in communications/media since 2010. It is also important to note that in several instances whilst there are personnel who work in such roles, neither ‘media’ or ‘communications’ are referenced in their job title; for example, a Press Officer.
Therefore to fulfil your request we would need to analyse the job description role of every employee to see if their role is part of communications/media. The job titles entered into our Human Resources database are ‘free text’ and so are based on the individual descriptions entered on the system. In addition, over time and also through restructuring, job titles and their descriptions do frequently change, which adds to the overall complexity and time needed to evaluate this data.
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.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to an organisational unit like News and External Relations, for example.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do 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.
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
Jasmine Howard FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
