FOI request detail

Ethnic break down of PH Drivers

Request ID: FOI-2613-1718
Date published: 12 January 2018

You asked

I am requesting a breakdown of the ethnicity of every TFL licensed private hire driver who was found guilty of a sexual assault in the year 2016- 2017

We answered

Thank you for your email asking for information about the Taxi & Private Hire directorate.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require.

However, in accordance with 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.

Under Regulation 5(2) of the Data Protection and Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004, we are permitted to aggregate requests where they relate to any extent to the same or similar information and this aggregation applies to any requests that are received within a sixty working day period, including individuals considered to be acting in concert.

We consider that the cost of complying with the seven FOI requests referred to above from individuals acting in concert, in pursuance of a campaign, would considerably exceed the cost limit, and this would be exceeded further if we were to consider any other associated requests received within the sixty working day period. Therefore we are refusing the above requests.

We suggest that, before submitting future requests, you consider which information is of the highest priority to make best use of the processing time within the FOI Act described above. Similarly, please be aware that requests that are to any extent similar that we have identified as working in concert will be considered together for the purposes of calculating the cost limit. Therefore, we recommend submitting single, complete requests for information across the full timeframe rather than splitting the request amongst different individuals as this will not circumvent the cost limit.

Please also be aware that the Information Commissioner has advised on the use of pseudonyms: “If the requester has used a pseudonym then their request will be invalid”. Therefore, if we have reason to believe a substantial number of requests are being made using pseudonyms, we will request proof of identity from requesters as appropriate.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

Senior FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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