TfL Ref: 3516-2223
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 27 March 2023 asking for information about TfL Project staff expenditure.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. You asked:
How much has TfL Projects spent on travel and accommodation for staff to attend the office?
I understand there are a number of staff in the DLR projects department have moved outside of Greater London since the pandemic and are charging their travel and accommodation as expenses to travel to/from and stay in London to attend their contractual place of work the required two times per week.
Can you please tell me How much has TfL projects as a whole (i.e. the non-operational part of the company) has spent on travel and accommodation in the last two financial years (2022/3 and 2021/2) on full time direct staff during a normal working week (Monday - Friday) which is being charged through expenses?
This should not include the cost of season tickets on network rail or the cost of free travel for these staff.
TfL’s expenditure is carefully assessed to ensure it is essential to providing a safe, efficient, extensive and reliable transport network, including expenses incurred by employees who often are called upon to travel and attend, for example, conferences and other out of hours business related activities in order to support a world class transport network transporting millions of people around the capital each day.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to source the requested information within the costs limit for responding to FOI cases, as set out under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. This is because the information you are seeking is not captured in the format as specified above, nor is it held in a single repository from which we could easily retrieve these details and compile accordingly to fulfil your request. Rather, the detail you seek is held across numerous databases, cost-centres and third party record systems, which would then need to be analysed and prepared within a TfL projects context.
Under section 12, TfL is not required to provide information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if it is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract that information from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work. 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.
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 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.
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 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
Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
