After the disastrous GLA inquiry which found them to be un-transparent and woefully inadequate, TfL are now asking a much wider audience through yet another consultation, how Transport for London can improve their transparency and accountability. They obviously feel this will dilute any anger presently being thrown in their direction from the Taxi and Private Hire trades they have so decimated.
On Wednesday, TfL announced to a collection of stakeholders including journalists and campaigners, that the Mayor’s transport agency is developing plans to publish greater amounts of information on its website, therefor avoiding the need for expensive Freedom of Information requests and ensuring commonly requested information is easily available.
Taxi Leaks' team members have made dozens of FOI requests, but frequently feel we have been given the run-around as TfL try to cover up its actions under a blanket of misinformation.
In a bid to help shape this new ‘transparency strategy’ in a way that suits their agendas, TfL is inviting interested stakeholders to comment both on the organisation’s existing publication schemes and the types of information they’d like to be made available.
The new consultation is available below:
Unbelievably, when we needed a consultation about the unlawful Taxi age limit...we never got one. Certain parties with financial conflicts of interest, made that decision on our behalf. And a nice little earner it was for some!
TAXI LEAKS TO HOLD A CONSULTATION
Taxi Leaks will soon be holding our consultation on whether TfL need more consultations.
We will be asking drivers to put their answers on a sheet of paper, put the paper in a bottle and float it down the Thames passed city hall. We expect to get more accurate results from our consultation, than TfL's get from their ones concerning the Taxi and Private Hire trades.
Transport Commissioner Sir Peter Hendy made this statement on Wednesday: "Openness and transparency about what we do, is a vital ingredient to delivering better transport services for London."
Is that why TfL asked its staff not to volunteer any information to FOI requests?
He went on to say, “We publish a huge amount of information and data to help our customers and stakeholders hold us to account. But we want to make sure we are publishing what people want and in a way that they find helpful".
Amazingly, every FOI request we've made for data, we are told TfL don't hold that information...seems like someone's telling porkies Sir Peter.
The Taxi trade has never achieved any positive result from a TfL consultation and in one case, the Suburban Review, we actually showed that the process was corruptible, when one of our team members made over fifty submissions using different names, proving the whole consultation was worthless.
Let's hope this time they take heed from the replies to this latest consultation. As far as The London a Taxi trade is concerned, we have repeatedly been ignored in the past.
TfL say, don't miss this opportunity to get involved and get your point across.....so they can ignore it?
