Request ID: FOI-3206-2223 Date published: 20 March 2023
You asked
F/o from 2900-2223
Regarding part 1 was wondering if we can request the top 5 employees but only providing the dates, time, hours and employee number? So not disclosing any personal data etc
We answered
TfL Ref: 3206-2223
Thank you for your follow on request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 2 March 2023 asking for information about TfL Ambassadors.
Your requests have been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. You asked for the top 5 employees by employee number who have done the most TFL ambassador shifts over the last 6 months, dates, time and hours.
I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. However, 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
The information you have requested is not something we centrally report on or collate. In order to answer your request, we would have to search our records for, and manually calculate the number of shifts every one of our almost 700 Ambassadors have worked and then work out which 5 had carried the most shifts over the last 6 months and extract the dates, times and hours which you have requested.. Since August 2022, we have had over 6000 shifts up to the date of your request. Therefore we have estimated that to manually locate, extract and collate all of the information you have requested would considerably exceed the cost limit. It should also be noted that an employee number would also constitute personal data as it is unique to an individual and would enable them to be identified and this information would therefore be exempt from disclosure under Data Protection legislation.
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does 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. If you have specific questions relating to these topics we may be more easily able to respond to these than to a request for any information held.
If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Sara Thomas FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
