FOI - Information requests [Nov 2025]

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide the following information for the most recent full financial year available:

1. The total number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests handled.
2. The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) and part-time employees involved in handling FOI requests.
3. The names of any software systems or tools used by the FOI team to manage or track requests.
4. The total annual cost of those software systems.
5. Any statistics or recorded information showing the average, median, and (if available) upper-quartile time spent per FOI request.
6. The total salary cost of each employee (or, if easier, the total salary expenditure for all FOI-handling staff).
7. Copies of any internal communications, reports, or evaluations discussing the cost or effectiveness of FOI handling.
8. Confirmation of whether the system used for FOI handling is also used for Subject Access Requests, complaints, or any other casework.

Response:

I can confirm that the GLA holds information within the scope of your request.

1. In FY 2024/2025 – 949 FOI and EIR cases (does not include other types of information access request or internal reviews)
 

2. The GLA had three FTE Information Governance Officer roles in 2024/25, working under the Information Governance Manager and Data Protection Officer in the Information Governance and Assurance team. However, any GLA staff member may be required to carry out searches and provide input into GLA FOI requests.
 

3. The GLA uses WriteON (a correspondence handling system), as well as the organisation’s Excel and Outlook packages. FOI disclosures are posted on the GLA’s website FOI disclosure log | London City Hall.
 

4. The WriteON contract is a rolling contract (start date 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026) and the cost is £42,080. In addition to FOI cases, this system is used for general correspondence, enquiries and complaints. We are unable to extract a cost for FOI handling only for WriteON or any of the above systems.
 

5. The GLA does not record this information.
 

6. One Information Governance Manager and Data Protection Officer Grade 11 and three FTE roles at Grade 7. Please see attached GLA pay scales for 2024/2025 and for further information please see Salaries, expenses, benefits and workforce information | London City Hall
 

7. I can confirm that the GLA holds information in scope of your request, both in terms of the cost of and effectiveness of handling individual FOI cases and at an organisational level in terms of staffing and systems. However, this information is not in a structured record but rather in different communications records

Unfortunately, to establish what the GLA holds in scope and 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 a request if 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 and equates to 18 hours of work.

We have therefore refused this part of your request under the cost limit provisions of section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act and this letter therefore constitutes a refusal notice under section 17(1) of the Act.

To bring the cost of responding to your request to within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing the scope of your request so that we can more easily provide the information you are seeking. For example, by providing a more defined subject matter.
 

8. The WriteOn system is also used for public enquiries to the Mayor and GLA via the GLA’s main email address, contact form or by post and for any stage 1 and stage 2 complaints considered under the GLA’s complaints policy. The system is not used for Subject Access Requests or for London Assembly Members’ casework.