Request ID: FOI-2941-2324 Date published: 11 December 2023
You asked
I would like to know how many staff currently employed by TfL are suspended due to allegations regarding the behaviour, and if possible a breakdown of how many of those are due to sexual harrassment complaints.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-2941-2324
Thank you for your request received on 14 November 2023 asking for information about current suspended staff.
Your request has been processed in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you have requested.
Every employee has the right to a supportive working environment free from harassment and bullying. All colleagues share responsibility to create safe and supportive working environments and this includes behaving in a responsible, moderate and sensitive manner in all dealings with others. All TfL staff are required to behave with a high standard of integrity in business and commercial relationships and treat colleagues and anyone with whom TfL has dealings fairly, with respect and dignity. Complaints of harassment and bullying are dealt with in confidence and every effort is made to resolve complaints as swiftly as possible.
Due to the nature of complaints, the issues raised can be multi-faceted and not limited to just one issue. Not all complaints listed under the category ‘harassment’ will contain any elements of sexual harassment and it may also be the case that complaints listed under other categories may have a sexual harassment element contained within wider complaints. As a result this is not something that can be easily reported on and not all complaints regarding sexual harassment will feature overt sexual harassment in the form of words used and may instead be suspicions based on perceptions of behaviour.
There are currently 72 open cases recorded as ‘harassment’. The only way to determine what information is held that fits within the scope of your request, including whether these people are suspended from duty or not, would be a detailed manual review of all elements of a complaint file. As such, to provide the information you have requested would still 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.
We have estimated that your request would cost in excess of £450 to provide a response to your current request. Even a conservative estimate of under an hour to go through each case file would still take over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
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. As advised above, this information is not held in a way that the data you have requested can be extracted easily or without the need to review individual case files. As any such requests are likely to exceed the cost limit you may wish to request different information. Please be aware that any timeframe that fits within the cost limit will be likely to only provide you with a very narrow subset of information which is therefore likely to be of limited value.
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
