Our Ref: FOI-2408-2425
Thank you for your request received on 29 October 2024 asking for information about staff convictions and crime on the TfL network.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. You asked:
• How many staff currently employed by TfL have convictions for sexual crimes?
• How many staff currently employed by TfL have convictions for crimes against children?
• How many staff currently employed by TfL have convictions for violent crimes?
• How many staff currently employed by TfL have convictions for domestic crimes?
Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested 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 your request would cost in excess of £450 to provide a response to your current request.
Any such convictions would be taken very seriously and a member of staff is obligated to inform us if they have been charged or convicted of a criminal offence. In these situations after a fact finding exercise they would be referred to a disciplinary hearing and go through any necessary disciplinary procedures. We are not able to report on the reason for a referral to a disciplinary hearing as this is not captured in our records. We would need to manually review the disciplinary files of any current employees to extract the requested information. In addition, any applicants have to declare unspent convictions and go through a DBS checks, if they are successful in the recruitment process. Successful applicants would have a record of this in their recruitment file, so these would also need to be checked.
Even a conservative estimate of under an hour to go through each case file would still take well over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested. This does not include any time that has been spent processing the remainder of you r 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, bearing in mind the information above. As advised above, this information is not held in a way that the data you have requested can be extracted easily or without the need to review individual case files. As any such requests are likely to exceed the cost limit you may wish to request different information. Please be aware that any timeframe that fits within the cost limit will be likely to only provide you with a very narrow subset of information which is therefore likely to be of limited value.
Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.
• How many known violent crimes took place on TfL for the year of 2000, and annually thereafter?
• How many known sexual crimes took place on TfL for the year of 2000, and annually thereafter?
We take a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of abuse on our network, and we are working hard to ensure our customers and staff are safe, feel safe and have the confidence to report any incident knowing that it will be taken seriously and investigated. Tackling sexual harassment and improving customers’ confidence to travel is a priority for us and we are committed to playing our full part in delivering the Mayor’s strategy to end violence against women and girls (VAWG).
The VAWG programme builds on a strong foundation of safety and security measures that includes over 2,000 police and police community support officers, 500 TfL enforcement officers an extensive CCTV network and 24/7 control centre.
We currently publish our six monthly Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour reports as part of the papers for the Customer Service and Operational Performance Panel (CSOPP), which includes data on violent crimes and sexual offences and are available on our website:
Meetings - Customer Service and Operational Performance Panel - Modern Council (tfl.gov.uk)
https://board.tfl.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=21856&ISATT=1#search=%22Six%20month%20Crime%20Anti-Social%20Behaviour%20%20%20ASB%20%20Repor%22
https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/s20334/csopp-20230712-item09b-Appendix%201%20Crime%20and%20Antisocial%20Behaviour%206%20Monthly%20Report.pdf
https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/s19234/Post-Meeting%20Publication%20-%20Quarterly%20Customer%20Services%20and%20Operational%20Performance%20Report%20-%20Quarter%20.pdf
Older data can also be found on our website:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/crime-and-incident-bulletins
Under section 21 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to provide you with information which is reasonably accessible by other means.
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.
Yours sincerely
Gemma Jacob
Senior FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
[email protected]
