Request ID: FOI-3483-2223 Date published: 21 April 2023
You asked
Please could I have the age breakdown of taxi drivers licensed for the first time during 2022. Thanks.
We answered
Our ref: FOI-3483-2223/GH
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 23 March 2023 asking for information about the age of new taxi drivers.
Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.
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’.
When drivers were licensed or relicensed the new licence overwrites the licence issue date on our system. We are unable to run an accurate report which shows which drivers were licensed for the first time in 2022, broken down by the age of the driver.
To answer your request we would therefore need to manually check a significant amount of licensing and driver records, which would take an excessive amount of time.
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
Graham Hurt FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
