TfL Ref: 2743-1718

Thank you for your email received by us on 28 December 2017 asking for information about Licensed Private Hire and Taxi drivers. I apologise for the delay in responding.

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 hold some of the information you require. You asked for:

a breakdown of convictions for both Licensed Private Hire & Taxis. Whilst allegations hold relevance, it is only right that safety concerns are addressed based on actual convictions, The over-all number has been provided, but not a breakdown of the total number

To ensure the safety of the travelling public, taxi and private hire drivers must meet a range of strict criteria to ensure they are of good character. This is assessed on the basis of an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check submitted as part of a licence application, information provided by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and any other information that comes to our attention.

Once a decision regarding a driver's application has been made the results of the DBS check have to be destroyed. This is in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice which has statutory backing. Therefore, we do not hold all details of convictions and cautions only those that have been declared to us by the driver.

Licensed drivers are obliged to notify us within 21 days if they have been disqualified from driving or have been cautioned, charged, or convicted of any criminal offence - including any road traffic offences. This requirement is clearly stated in the letter that accompanies all driver licences.

To provide information on all convictions held by licensed drivers would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, as we would need to check in excess of 140,000 individual taxi and private hire driver records to identify, extract and collate this information. The information requested is not held in a reportable format and we have estimated that manually checking this data would considerably exceed the set limit.

You may also be interested in the breakdown of data on taxi and private hire drivers convicted of or charged with a journey-related sexual assault which is published at: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/safety-and-security/security-on-the-network/tph-related-sexual-offences

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. If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, geographical area or specific departments of the organisation.

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.

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
Information Governance
Transport For London