FOI - London Assembly Member Caroline Russell [Jun 2025]

Your request 

1. For Caroline Russell AM, please provide a summary of all actions she has taken over the past 6 months to hold TfL to account for its performance. This should include (but not be limited to): a) Formal questions submitted to the Mayor or TfL b) Contributions at relevant committee meetings c) Public statements, correspondence, or campaigns d) Any actions taken in response to constituent complaints e) Interventions relating to service failures, executive pay, refund processing, or service disruption 2
2. Please provide any evidence the GLA holds that demonstrates how the actions of Caroline Russell AM has led to improvements in TfL’s performance or service delivery for Londoners. If no such evidence exists, please confirm that explicitly. If any of this information is already publicly available, please provide direct links to the specific records or documents, not to generic landing pages.

Our response

Part 1 (a-b)

This information is published and therefore exempt from our duty to respond under Section 21 of the FOI Act 2000 (Information reasonably accessible to the applicant by other means).

Questions to the Mayor can be found at Find an Answer | London City Hall. You can filter by questions asked by individual Assembly Members and topic. For example you can see that Caroline has asked 952 questions on the subject of transport since she was elected in 2016.

The responsibilities for each Assembly Member can be found on their individual profile pages. This details the individual committees to which they are party. The profile page for Caroline can be found at: Caroline Russell | London City Hall

• Member of the GLA Oversight Committee
• Member of the Transport Committee
• Member of the Confirmation Hearings Committee
• Member of the Chief Officer Performance Review Panel
• Member of the Standing Orders Working Group

The Agenda and minutes for the above committee meetings can be found at: London Assembly committees | London City Hall

The Agenda and minutes for plenary and Mayor’s Question Time (Whole Assembly meetings) can be found at: Browse - Assembly | London City Hall

Part 1 (c)

• Press releases can be found at: Assembly Member press releases | London City Hall
• Publications can be found at: London Assembly publications | London City Hall
• Investigations can be found at: London Assembly current investigations | London City Hall

Unfortunately, we are unable to action your request for ‘correspondence’. Your request in its current form is too broad for us to reasonably be able to process*.

Part 1 (d-e)

Your request in its current form is too broad for us to reasonably be able to process and it is unlikely that the GLA ‘holds’ the information to be able to respond to your request. *ICO guidance (Determining whether we hold information | ICO)  states that:

Exercising skill and judgement to compile information.

Creating lists and schedules is usually a relatively simple – if time-consuming – task. However, there are some circumstances where you cannot compile information without exercising a degree of skill or judgement….

When deciding whether or not you hold information which has to be derived from raw data, you should consider whether anyone with similar skills or experience would reach the same result if presented with the same set of raw data

The GLA and the London Assembly receives a high volume of correspondence. Reviewing this information to establish content that infers an action that you have described, would require a high degree of subjectivity. For example, an Assembly Member may receive several complaints regarding a particular issue (both verbally and in writing) and then lobby the Mayor and/or TfL for change over various forums and media. Drawing an intrinsic link associated with this activity is not something that is actively recorded or summarised.

Please also note further ICO guidance (Request handling, Freedom of Information – Frequently Asked Questions | ICO) which states that:

When is information considered ‘held’ under FOIA?

You may hold information solely on behalf of another public authority or another individual. This would not be considered to be ‘held’ by you.

Similarly, information which is purely personal, political, constituency or trade union information could be considered as information which is not held by you and would not be relevant to any request which you receive.

Under our duty to provide reasonable advice and assistance to people who propose to make, or have made, requests for information; I would suggest simply contacting London Assembly Members directly would be a more effective route to obtain a quantified response and/or opinion to your questions. Their email addresses are available on each of their profile pages on our website.

Part 2

The GLA does not hold information in relation to the second part of your request. Please note that it is the role of the Mayor to improve TfL’s performance and service delivery (and not the Assembly Members). The London Assembly’s role is to hold the Mayor to account. There may be instances where their work has led to improvements in relation to Transport and Service delivery, however, this would be largely subjective (as I have detailed above). The role of the London Assembly is explained in more detail here: About the London Assembly | London City Hall