Request ID: FOI-2569-2324 Date published: 09 November 2023
You asked
I would like to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act.
1. What is the longest wait for a Tfl private hire driver licence which is still outstanding?
1. How many applications for a Tfl private hire driver license you received between 16 December 2022 and 7 September 2023?
2. How many of those applications were made from applicants with a disability?
How many of the disabled applicants requested reasonable adjustments for the topographical test?
How many of them requested reasonable adjustments for the topographical assessment and how how many of them were granted?
3. How many of the applications received from disabled applicants between 16 December 2022 and 1 April 2023 are still outstanding? Why are they still outstanding?
4. Please can you confirm whether you have provided topographical assessments to non-disabled applicants who applied after disabled applicants between 16 December 2022 and 7 September 2023?
5. If so, please can you provide all the figures and the reasons for this.
Please can you confirm whether you hold this information and whether you will disclose this information.
We answered
Our ref: FOI-2569-2324/GH
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 17 October 2023 asking for information about TfL private hire driver licences.
Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.
I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. However, 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
We are unable to readily report on whether applications were made by people with, or without a disability. This would fall within the DVLA Group 2 health checks and medical declaration that all applicants must submit as part of their licence application.
There are circa 106,500 private hire licensees with the vast majority being licensed for a three year period, therefore the period requested would cover approximately a third of licence applications - being in the tens of thousands. To answer your questions regarding applicants with a disability, we would need to manually check the medical declarations on all of these applications.
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does 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 you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Graham Hurt FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
