1) Please disclose all internal correspondence (emails, letters etc) between TFL and all your partners about how to tackle the issue of rough sleepers at Westminster tube station 2) Please disclose all internal correspondence (letters and emails) about broader policy across the entire TFL network to tackle the issue of rough sleepers

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FOI Ref: FOI-2693-1920

Thank you for your revised request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 4 December 2019.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

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.

You asked for copies of correspondence with the parliamentary estate, Metropolitan Police and Westminster City Council relating to rough sleeping at Westminster tube station from April 2018 until 4 December 2019. You also asked for all internal correspondence relating to broader policy on rough sleeping across the entire TfL network.

We are working to help staff understand the importance of reporting anyone they believe may be vulnerable or in need of support, and have issued guidance to staff to assist with this. Staff have access to information on how to help someone who may be rough sleeping, homeless or vulnerable, while ensuring anyone who behaves in a threatening manner towards customers or staff, or commits a crime, is reported to the police. We are hoping that new guidance and improved processes specifically relating to rough sleepers will make it easier for stations staff to report, enabling us to map hotspots and ensure a consistency of approach across the network.

We have a dedicated TfL outreach team who work every night to help homeless people who use Night Buses and Tubes as a place to sleep. The team are part of the Mayor’s efforts to help connect rough sleepers with services in the capital and they have helped many vulnerable people find accommodation, access to support services and reconnected them with family and friends. The team focus on transport routes which homeless people are known to frequent, or that bus drivers and Tube staff have referred the team to. We are also working with local outreach teams, as well as the Thames Reach team (joint-funded by the Mayor and TfL), to try to ensure vulnerable people receive the help they need.

If a rough sleeper is on station, it is reported using WAASB (Workplace Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour app - available on all staff iPads). This helps us to understand the issues at a station and obtain the necessary support for staff. In addition to this, the first time an individual is reported as sleeping rough, it will also be referred to Streetlink. This is a service that enables reports of rough sleepers to be directed to local outreach services to ensure we are able to connect people with services, including No Second Night Out which provides three 24-hour assessment hubs, to ensure a wide range of help is offered immediately. If there is an individual under the age of 18 sleeping rough, or an individual is in need of medical assistance, emergency services are also contacted. Stations who have reported rough sleepers are contacted at least biweekly to ensure that they have the right support they require and are aware of the correct processes.

If you are interested to find out more, details on the Thames Reach outreach service are available here

We have conducted searches for any emails to/from "@met.police.uk" "@westminster.gov.uk" "@parliament.uk" that contain either of the terms ‘homeless’ or ‘rough sleeper’ since 1 April 2018 and this produced 5,362 hits. This excessive volume of information would require comprehensive review. Each email caught by the search would need to be manually reviewed to determine whether it’s concerning the topic of rough sleeping or TfL’s policy on rough sleeping. Many of the hits would likely to be not relevant, duplicates, due to emails being repeated within email chains. Whilst the actual number of emails covered by your request might be a sub-set of the numbers the email search captured, it is the excessive work involved in having to locate and extract those that are relevant and meet your request, that would be very burdensome.

Furthermore there are likely to be additional emails relevant to your request that may not have been caught by the keyword searches and so we would likely need to conduct further searches using additional keywords and finding relevant members of TfL staff who would have had discussions on this topic, to ensure that everything relevant has been located and collated, which would of course increase the processing time required to complete your 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, a request for specific policy documents or reports is less likely to raise concerns about the processing time required to answer it. You may also wish to limit your correspondence search to specific TfL’s modes and shorter period of time.

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

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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