Please can you release any emails, briefing documents or internal reports that outline contingency options if Transport for London’s net operating surplus goes into deficit. Ie any documents that outline the options available for Transport for London if it does not have enough income left over after covering day-to-day operating costs to renew assets or fund investment programme.

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TfL Ref: FOI-4381-1718

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 2 February 2018 asking for correspondence and documentation.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require.

The Business Plan, published on our website here: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/business-plan  shows we are planning to operate a net operating deficit (after renewals and financing costs) each year to 2021/22, when we aim to go into a net operating surplus.

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested regarding “emails, briefing documents or internal reports” on this matter 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

To locate the information you have requested, we would need to conduct a company wide search across an unlimited period of time using multiple generic keywords that potentially fit within the scope of your request. These emails would each need to be manually reviewed to determine whether they are caught by your request. Many of the emails are likely to be not relevant, or duplicates, (due to emails being repeated within email chains), as well as emails being forwarded internally for discussion during this time period that contain a relevant email within its email chain.

We estimate that the number of emails we would need to review would be sufficiently excessive as to exceed the cost limit. To help bring your request within the cost limit, you should specify the documents you require as succinctly as you can, or provide more precise explanation of the emails you require to ensure that we are able to conduct a more focused search that would be less likely to raise concerns about the reviewing process detailed above.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Lee Hill

Senior FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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