Ian Drummond JP LLB

Solicitor To The Council

Glasgow City Council

City Chambers

George Square

Glasgow G2 1DU

Phone 0141 287 4521

Fax No 0141 287 3627

Our Ref: IAD/foireview/gray2/2214148

Your Ref:

3 February 2009

Email response sent to [FOI #4519 email]

Dear Ms Gray,

REQUEST FOR REVIEW UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 ("THE ACT")

FORMAL REVIEW

I refer to your request for a review of part of the response you received to your original enquiry received by us 4^th December, 2008.

Your request

Your request for information included the following query:-

1 “….how many employees of the City Council have been absent from work due to either stress, anxiety, depression or any combination of those ailments between 1^st August 2004 and 31^st October 2008.”

It is this part of your original request for information on which you requested a review.

The Decision

A decision letter was sent to you on 5^th January 2008 by email from Kathleen Reid, Corporate Compliance Officer, advising you that Glasgow City Council does not hold some of the information you have requested and that no one holds it on our behalf and that we were unable, therefore, to comply with your request.

In that letter, Ms Reid also further explained that the Council does not currently utilize an electronic database to store information of this kind and thus, to examine, produce and collate the information you requested from the information that the Council does hold would necessitate a large expenditure of staff time, often involving the physical inspection of manual records for thousands of Council employees across numerous Council service departments. As such, you were advised it was not cost effective nor an efficient use of staff time to comply with your request in this instance.

The Review

You sought a review of this decision on 5^th January, 2008 in relation to the point listed above raised in your initial request and, more specifically, requesting clarification as to what information is held or not held by the Council.

2

The Review Decision

I have now carried out a full review of the decision made by Ms Reid. I have concluded that this decision is correct and confirm that I agree with the original decision.

After further investigation, I can confirm that the Council's current form of data management system records absences of this type as `psychological'. Psychological absences include absences resulting from bereavement, as well as those absences stemming from stress, anxiety and depression. At present, the Council cannot extrapolate the precise information you have requested, which is, specifically relating to only stress, anxiety and depression. Additionally, I can confirm that the sections of Table 1 and 2 of our response letter categorized as “no information available” represent areas where this information has not been recorded or is not ascertainable under our existing records management system.

As mentioned within Ms Reid's letter, the Council will be rolling out a new SAP centralised database in stages during the course of this coming year which will be able to generate more detailed information. However, it is not currently possible to collate all the information as you have requested, nor is it possible to compile the existing information in a cost effective and time efficient manner.

Section 12 (1) of the Act holds that a Scottish Public Authority does not have to comply with a request made under the Act if the cost incurred in doing so would be excessive and above the prescribed amount as contained within Regulation 5 Freedom on Information (Fees for Required Disclosure) (Scotland) Regulations 2004. This threshold is currently £600. The projected costs involved in this instance, including locating and retrieving the information, photocopying, postage and staff time, reflecting the true payscale of the member(s) of staff who would be involved and capped at a ceiling of £15 per hour, would exceed this current limit, due to the manual examination which would be required of records across many Council services and accordingly, the Council are unable to comply with your request.

Right to Appeal

If you are not satisfied with this response you have the right to make an Application within six months of receipt of this letter for a decision by The Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle, Doubledykes Road, St. Andrews, KY16 9DS.

Yours sincerely

IAN DRUMMOND

SOLICITOR TO THE COUNCIL

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