Under the Freedom of Information ACT, can you please provide a full breakdown of advertised PB4 vacancies advertised, number internal applicants and external applications for each role broken-down under the Equality ACT 2010 stands. Clarification if the recruitment, selection and assessment and interview panels were diverse in accordance with TfL HR guidance i.e. Equality ACT 2010 as per TfL HR Director guidance.

---

TfL Ref: 3022-1718

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 23 January asking for a full breakdown of advertised PB4 vacancies advertised, number internal applicants and external applications for each role broken-down under the Equality ACT 2010 stands.

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. You asked:

Under the Freedom of Information ACT, can you please provide a full breakdown of advertised PB4 vacancies advertised, number internal applicants and external applications for each role broken-down under the Equality ACT 2010 stands.

Clarification if the recruitment, selection and assessment and interview panels were diverse in accordance with TfL HR guidance i.e. Equality ACT 2010 as per TfL HR Director guidance.

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would 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, locating and retrieving it and 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.

We have estimated that it would significantly exceed the appropriate limit to provide a response to your current request.  We initially produced a raw data report on PB4 vacancies advertised since the recent post Transformation Recruitment for Finance,  where we aggregated all applications for roles into one report; however this did not give us a breakdown by internal / external applicants or by role which you had requested. Just to produce this one report took over 7 hours. Therefore to carry out the same exercise for each of the eleven advertised vacancies would take considerably longer , as well as then breaking the information down to the levels you require therefore exceeding the appropriate limit as outlined above.

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. For example we may be able to provide information on a specific advertised role or a specific criteria such as gender or ethnicity.  We would also be grateful if you could confirm the time period in which you are interested in as this wasn’t explicit in your request. 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.

It is also worth bearing in mind when submitting a more focused request that the breakdown you are seeking may engage s40(2) of the FOI Act if by filtering the data you are able to identify individuals through sensitive personal data.

We are able to answer the second part of your request about the diversity of the interview panels if you would like to submit a fresh request for this specific information.

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

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

Back to top

---