Request ID: FOI-3285-2324 Date published: 24 January 2024
You asked
I kindly request the following information regarding staff absences at TfL for each month of the year 2023:
1. The total number of staff absences for each month of 2023.
2. A breakdown of staff absences by department or role category for each month of 2023.
Additionally, I request information on how many of these staff absences contributed to service impacts, with a detailed breakdown by TfL line for each month of 2023.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-3285-2324
Thank you for your request received on 26 December 2023 asking for information about monthly staff absences due to sickness.
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 that we do hold the information you require. You asked for:
1. The total number of staff absences for each month of 2023. 2. A breakdown of staff absences by department or role category for each month of 2023.
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.
We have recently responded to a request regarding staff absence that provides some of the information you have requested.
Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested broken down by department or role 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 cost £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take in excess of 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
We do not record absence by department as this is not a defined group used by our reporting team and therefore we are unable to report directly on this. Similarly, providing information by job role will also not give an accurate representation of absence in any one department as roles such as ‘Project Manager’ could be a number of areas across the organisation. We would therefore need to manually extract and collate the information into specific departments in order to meet the requirements of your request which would be a significant task.
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. If there is a specific team or high level directorate that you are interested in then we may be able to provide this information, however this will be dependent on our ability to extract the information from the available data.
If you want to refine your request or make a FOI Act request in future, please bear in mind that the FOI 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.
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.
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
