Our Ref:         FOI-3679-1920

Thank you for your request received on 27 February 2020 further to your previous Freedom of Information request (reference: FOI-3326-1920) asking about the topographical skills requirement for private hire drivers.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold the information you require. In your request, you asked for the:

“current drivers there were licensed prior to September 2013 that were recorded in a different format on our legacy IT system and granted concessions?”

As previously explained, we allow a small number of concessions for applicants who can demonstrate that they already satisfy the topographical skills requirement. The current concessions are:

• applicants who have passed a TfL topographical skills assessment
• licensed London taxi drivers – both All London and Suburban
• professional London tourist guides (e.g. Blue Badge Driver Guide)

On 1 February 2020 the exemption previously given to applicants with a relevant vocational qualification was removed. Please see TPH Notice 06-19 for more information: http://content.tfl.gov.uk/06-19-topographical-skills-assessments.pdf.

Our records show that as of 19 March 2020, 961 of the private hire drivers who were licensed had been granted a concession to the topographical skills assessment prior to September 2013.

Unfortunately, to provide information on the particular concession granted to each driver in this period 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 in excess of £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested. The information requested is not held in a reportable format and we would need to individually check each of the 961 driver records to identify, extract and collate this information which would considerably exceed the cost limit explained above.

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]