Our Ref:         FOI-3124-1819

Thank you for your request received on 18 February 2019 asking for further information about pollution on the London Underground. I apologise for the delay in my response.
 
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations and our information access policy. I can confirm we hold some of the information you require. You asked for:
 
In that case, please provide the details of those 15 cases you have already identified.
 
Please find attached a spreadsheet that list the cases that have been coded by our Customer Service team as a ‘health complaint’. The attached documents (FOI-3124-1819 and 10504303) contain a copy of the complaint received. Please note that the status column is only a snapshot taken from the day after the case was received. These cases have all now been resolved.
 
In accordance with TfL’s obligations under Data Protection legislation some information has been withheld from the attached correspondence, as required by regulation 13 of the EIR. This is because disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of the legislation, specifically the first principle of Article 5 of the General Data Protection Regulation which requires all processing of personal data to be fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions which would make the processing ‘fair’.
 
Please provide full details of the number of formal investigations by TfL or LU into health complaints by staff or customers in the past 12 months, details of those investigations, any correspondence therein, and the outcomes of those investigations.
 
There have not been any formal investigations by TfL or London Underground into health complaints by staff or customers in the past 12 months.
 
When we receive complaints from customers relating to health issues on the Tube, in this case looking at dust and pollution, we would respond back to the customer thanking them for raising their concerns and the Customer Contact Centre would let the operational area know of the complaint via a ‘hand-off’. The Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) department would normally be informed either by the operational area via an Incident Report Form, the daily safety report, or by other processes that HSE they have in place direct with operational areas. The operational area would then carry out any necessary investigations and remedial action. Dependent on the nature of the complaint, a response will then be sent to the customer advising them of the action taken to resolve their complaint.
 
Given the extent of the information you are looking for, we are applying Regulation 12(4)(b) as we believe that this part of the request is ‘manifestly unreasonable’ because providing the information you have requested about these cases would impose unreasonable costs on us and require an unreasonable diversion of resources. To answer your current request would take an excessive amount of staff time and resources.
 
As previously advised, over a 24 month period, we identified over 2,500 cases received by the Customer Contact Centre that were logged using the codes used for air, noise, and air pollution. Your revised request is for 12 months worth of data, but we estimate there could be approximately 1,000 complaints made based on our previous search. We would need to review the cases to confirm whether it refers to a health complaint and then collate any associated documents resulting from those complaints which would likely be difficult to identify. London Underground has a stringent cleaning regime to ensure a more pleasant environment for customers and staff, and prevent dust from interfering with the functioning of electrical equipment. We routinely monitor dust levels to ensure they remain low and within acceptable levels. Any issues identified by customers are likely to be actioned as part of our routine cleaning and monitoring.
 
The use of this exception is subject to a public interest test, which requires us to consider whether the public interest in applying the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosure. We recognise that the release of information would promote accountability and transparency in public services and also help address your particular concerns about this issue. However, the time it would take to provide the information you have requested would divert a disproportionate amount of our resources from its core functions and on balance we consider that the public interest currently favours the use of the exception.
 
We will consider your request again, if you are able to narrow its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. If you have specific questions we will be happy to consider those.
 
If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please feel free 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

[email protected]

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