I would like to see a breakdown of all refusals by TFL to renew a private hire licence over the last two years.
Request ID: FOI-2344-2324 Date published: 27 October 2023
You asked
As above. Categories are Health reasons/ DBS/ Points on Licence/Other I would like you to pay particular attention to points on the driver licence. Obviously 12 points and you lose your licence and that is that. So with the refusals for points on licence please explain your criteria as it is not published. Which offences mean no renewal. A breakdown of each refusal showing the specific DVLA code. Can you also explain where your authority comes from to make decisions with regards the licence especially when the driver is still allowed to keep his licence via DVLA and the vehicle he drives is properly insured regardless of points on the licence. It appears at present that these decisions are arbitrary in their making with no official way of applying to the driver asking to renew his licence.
We answered
TfL Ref: 2344-2326
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 2 October 2023 asking for information about Private Hire licences.
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:
a breakdown of all refusals by TFL to renew a private hire licence over the last two years.
As above. Categories are Health reasons/ DBS/ Points on Licence/Other I would like you to pay particular attention to points on the driver licence. Obviously 12 points and you lose your licence and that is that.
So with the refusals for points on licence please explain your criteria as it is not published. Which offences mean no renewal. A breakdown of each refusal showing the specific DVLA code.
Can you also explain where your authority comes from to make decisions with regards the licence especially when the driver is still allowed to keep his licence via DVLA and the vehicle he drives is properly insured regardless of points on the licence. It appears at present that these decisions are arbitrary in their making with no official way of applying to the driver asking to renew his licence.
We can advise that any serious driving offence resulting in six or more points, or 12 points on a licence - whether disqualified or not - will likely result in a refusal. Nine points would normally result in a warning.
We do not readily have this information in the format you are seeking, as our records management systems do not report on the number of decisions which have been made on the basis of different number of DVLA endorsement points. As this data is not recorded in a way that allows for the requested information to be easily extracted, to fulfil your request would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
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.
We have estimated that it would cost over £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take in excess of 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested, as we would need to manually check and categorise all licence refusals within a two year period to comply with this request.
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. For example, you may wish to narrow the timeframe of your request.
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.
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.
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
