Request ID: FOI-2991-2122 Date published: 28 April 2022
You asked
Follow-on from FOI-2836-2122:
Please could I amend my request to the following:
1. Please could you tell me how many complaints of racism/homophobia in relation to words used or behaviour exhibited were made against your employees in 2020/21?
2. For each proven claim of racism/homophobia 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/homophobic language that was complained about if it made up part of the complaint.
3. Please provide me with a table showing what sanctions, if any, were taken against staff in relation to these proven claims?
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-2991-2122
Thank you for your request received on 31 March 2022 asking for information about complaints made against staff for racist behaviour in 2020/21.
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.
1. Please could you tell me how many complaints of racism/homophobia in relation to words used or behaviour exhibited were made against your employees in 2020/21?
There have been 358 recorded enquiries to our Customer Contact Centre that have been coded as ‘Racial/Homophobic Abuse.’ However, without reviewing each of these enquiries we are unable to provide any further information. Please note that these are complaints made by customers and may relate to passenger interactions rather than specifically against our staff. Additionally these will not include any incidents where members of staff have complaints about other employees.
2. For each proven claim of racism/homophobia 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/homophobic language that was complained about if it made up part of the complaint. 3. Please provide me with a table showing what sanctions, if any, were taken against staff in relation to these proven claims?
Unfortunately, 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.
As previously advised in our responses to your earlier requests, 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 revised request would still cost in excess of £7000 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it could take over 280 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested. There were 574 cases opened, and 500 closed during 2020-2021, we would still need to review each of these cases individually in order to provide the requested information. The team have estimated that it could take approximately 30 minutes to review each case file to identify and extract the requested information.
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 any request that would involve the need to review individual case files are likely to exceed the cost limit you may wish to request different information.
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
