Pre-determined schedule for the publication of a breakdown of the responses for ULEZ consultation
Request ID: FOI-2873-2223 Date published: 09 February 2023
You asked
Follow-up to FOI-2381-2223: Help me understand. In FOI request FOI-1177-2223 you say there is a:
- pre-determined (established or decided in advance)
- schedule (a plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times)
Which you used to qualify the requested information as exempt using s22 FOI Act. Essentially telling the requester that they can't have the information now because TfL is going to publish it later, in fact, soon according to the 'planned process'. Could you provide me with the details of the 'planned process'?
In response to me, you say that the 'pre-determined schedule' doesn't exist, so what evidence can you offer up that the exemption is justified.
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-2873-2223
Thank you for your further request of 4th February 2023 asking for information about the ULEZ expansion consultation.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
Specifically you asked:
“In FOI request FOI-1177-2223 you say there is a:
- pre-determined (established or decided in advance) - schedule (a plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times)
Which you used to qualify the requested information as exempt using s22 FOI Act. Essentially telling the requester that they can't have the information now because TfL is going to publish it later, in fact, soon according to the 'planned process'. Could you provide me with the details of the 'planned process'?
In response to me, you say that the 'pre-determined schedule' doesn't exist, so what evidence can you offer up that the exemption is justified.”
Guidance on the application of the section 22 “information intended for future publication” exemption is published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on its website here:
“For the exemption in section 22 to apply, the public authority must, at the time of the request, hold the information and intend that it or ‘any other person’ will publish it in future. This means that it must have a settled expectation that the information will be published at some future date.”
Further on in the guidance, paragraph 12 states:
“Although the public authority must hold the information at the time of the request with a view to its publication, the exemption does not require a set publication date to be in place.”
As explained by my colleague Emma Flint in her response to your Internal Review request, there is no single, documented ‘schedule’ that set out exact dates for publication. However, this does not mean that there was not already an intention to publish, and an approximate schedule had already been agreed. This is evidenced in the ULEZ expansion consultation pages of our website here:
As you can see on that page, there is a timeline on the right of the page which shows the “lifecycle” of the consultation process as follows: Open - Under Review - Final Report. Further to this, in the main body of text on that page (click “Continue Reading” to see it) there is a section titled “Update 4 August 2022” which reads as follows:
“Our consultation on proposals to extend the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has now closed. Thank you to everyone who responded. We are now considering the feedback we received and aim to publish our consultation report and next steps later in the year.”
As you can see, this clearly sets out an approximate schedule for the results of the consultation to be published “later in the year”. This was the “pre-determined schedule” that was referred to in response to case ref FOI-1177-2023 (which was received on 10th August 2022, 6 days after the consultation update referred to above was published). That schedule was subsequently met with the final report being issued in October 2022.
If this is not the information you are looking for please do not hesitate to contact me.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
