Our Ref: FOI-2676-2425
Thank you for your request received on 22 November 2024 asking for information about private hire drivers.
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 for:
Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by FOI (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.
When a driver’s licence is revoked we do not report on where the revocation originated from. We report on the reason for a licence revocation by the type of offence that has occurred. There have been over 3,000 revocations that have taken place over the past six years. A significant amount of resources and time would be required to locate and manually review each individual record to determine which licence revocations originated from a notification from the private hire operator and then extract and collate any relevant information we may hold to answer this request.
Any allegations that lead to an operator dismissing a driver due to their unsatisfactory conduct in connection with driving a private hire vehicle must be notified to TfL as soon as it is practically possible and within 14 days.
We provide form PHV/105 for this purpose, however, the same form can be used by an operator to inform TfL of any concerns or complaints they may have about a driver who has not been dismissed.
This form can therefore be used by an operator to notify TfL if a driver has been suspended from working for the operator, but also to provide outcomes of any investigation/review they have undertaken with respect to a complaint that was received. Further information on this process can be found on our private hire operator licensing webpage.
We receive hundreds of PHV105 forms from private hire operators annually, for example in the past six months (between May and October 2024) we received 261 forms from Uber. We would need to manually review each form to determine whether this led to a licence revocation and meets the requirements of your request.
We have previously published taxi and private hire revocations in response to information requests, which are available on our website using the following links:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-2947-2223 (2022 revocations)
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-3851-2324 (2023 revocations)
However, a licence suspension decision can result from a number of factors and the ultimate decision recorded may not accurately reflect all the relevant reasons that resulted in a decision to revoke a licence. We cannot easily identify and report on licences that were revoked for a single reason, such as a driver’s failure to pass Uber's facial recognition checks. Our Taxi and Private Hire Driver Policy document sets our approach on the consideration of taxi and private hire driver licence applications, including minimum periods before re-licensing.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope. If you want to refine your request or make a FOI Act request in future, please bear in mind that the FOI Act allows you to request recorded information held by us.
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.
In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, 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]