Request ID: FOI-2708-2122 Date published: 11 March 2022
You asked
1. Please could you tell me how many complaints of racism in relation to words used or behaviour exhibited were made against your employees in (i) 2018/19, (ii) 2019/20, (iii) 2020/21 and (iv) the current financial year up to 31.1.22.
2. For each complaint could you provide me with a summary of the allegation that was made ensuring no personal details are revealed. Please be sure to provide the specific racist language that was allegedly used and complained about if racist language was part of the complaint.
3. Please provide me with a table showing what sanctions, if any, were taken against staff in relation to these allegations
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-2708-2122
Thank you for your request received on 24 February 2022 asking for information about complaints made against staff for racist behaviour.
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 we do hold the information you require.
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, and then locating and retrieving it, or 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, which equates to 18 hours work.
In order to collate this information we would have to manually check all of the queries we have received that have been coded as relating to ‘Racial/Homophobic Abuse’. For the time period requested, there have been over 1100 received. This does not include any queries we have received that have not been coded this way. Please note that some of these queries may relate to incidents where staff were subjected to abuse. Again, it is not possible to determine this without reviewing each query.
Even at a conservative estimate of three minutes per complaint, this would equate to over 55 hours of work. Providing a summary of the incident or alleged offence and any actions taken would take longer still. Our HR team are currently unable to report on the reason for a complaint so would have to review all of the files relating to cases where complaints were made against staff. This would add to the time taken to respond to your request considerably.
Proven cases of racism could result in an oral warning, written warning, final written warning, and dismissal.
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.
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
