Request ID: FOI-2941-2122 Date published: 05 May 2022
You asked
In accordance with the FOI Act please provide a list of the last 10 projects completed with a value of more than £50M?
For each project, please provide the following information:
• How many bids were received?
• What was the value of each bid?
• What was the split between quality and value for bid evaluation?
• What was the value of the bid awarded the contract?
• What was the outturn cost for the project?
Clarification received 06/04/2022: I mean projects as in physical works – ie Crossrail/ NLE/ bridge works/ roadworks etc (things like that).
We answered
Thank you for your request of 21st March 2022 asking for information about TfL projects completed with a value of more than £50M.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
Specifically you asked:
“Please provide a list of the last 10 projects completed with a value of more than £50M?
For each project, please provide the following information:
How many bids were received?
What was the value of each bid?
What was the split between quality and value for bid evaluation?
What was the value of the bid awarded the contract?
What was the outturn cost for the project?”.
On 6th April 2022 you confirmed that the request relates to “projects as in physical works” rather than, for example, individual procurement exercises.
I can confirm that we hold the information you require. However, I am afraid it is not possible to source the information to answer your request within the appropriate limit for responding to FOI cases, as set out under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. Under section 12, TfL is not required to provide information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if that information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract it from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour.
In this case the costs exemption applies because the information has not been collated before, and because there is no quick or efficient way of doing so. This is the case because major projects - such as Crossrail, for example - are not delivered via a single contract. Rather, different elements are contracted to different parties. Therefore, for each of the “10 projects completed with a value of more than £50M” we would need to answer each of your questions in respect of multiple different contract awards. To demonstrate this point further, the following section of the Crossrail website gives details of the different contractors involved with that project alone:
As you can see, there were a vast number of different contractors contributing to the delivery of the project and to answer each of your questions for each of the contracts that fall under the banner of “Crossrail” alone would in itself trigger the costs exemption.
In order to bring your request within the cost limit you may wish to narrow its scope to focus on the information that is of most importance to you. For example, using published material such as the above link and the TfL contracts register (see here: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/contracts-greater-than-5000) you may instead wish to specify the exact contracts you are interested in. Alternatively, if you were to restrict your request to the last 10 “procurement exercises” with a value of over £50m then that is information we would likely be able to source more readily, although note that not all such procurement exercises were necessarily in respect of ‘physical works’.
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
