Gerald Rouse [[FOI #45844 email]]

21 September 2010

Dear Mr Rouse,

We have now processed your request of August 27 2010, in which you requested the following information concerning the Oriel Maths and Computing College (formerly Oriel High School), following information supplied to you on April 7 2010:

could you separately identify all the reimbursements (for each

individual) in the following months with a separate monthly

reimbursement total.

September 07 (total gross pay £38,911.00)

June 08 (total gross pay £48,390.72)

September 08 (total gross pay £46,054.58)

July 09 (total gross pay £39,729.71)

September 09 (total gross pay £50,718.43)

£500.

year april 09 to march 09, and as a percentage of the Gross pay for

that year(£523,822.42).

Your request for information has now been considered and is refused. In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Your request is refused on the following grounds:

1. The cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the "appropriate limit" of £450, 18 hours calculated at the standard rate of £25 per hour, as stated in the Freedom of Information & Data Protection (Appropriate Limit & Fees) Regulations 2004.

This information has to be retrieved and collated manually, even where it is held on electronic systems, i.e.

We estimate the cost to be 2 hours per person in the top ten (£50 each), amounting to a total cost, excluding subsequent collation, of £500.

2. Personal data

Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides that any information to which a request for information relates is also exempt information if it constitutes personal data [about a third party], and either the first or the second condition below is satisfied.

The first condition is

in a case where the information falls within definition of data under Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), the disclosure of the information would contravene any of the data protection principles or Section 10 of the DPA.

In any other case, the disclosure of the information would contravene any of the data protection principles if the exemptions in S33A(1) of DPA were disregarded.

The second condition is that by virtue of any provision of Part IV of DPA the information is exempt from Section 7(1)(c) of the DPA.

Reason why the exemption applies

This decision is based upon the following reasons:

Notwithstanding that the request does not ask for the top ten earners to be named, these persons can be identified by reference to other data held by the data controller (Norfolk County Council). For further information on this principle you are referred to the decision of the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) of 3 February 2010 (the Magherafelt Decision), a copy of which I am supplying with this response.

For the avoidance of doubt, this request is actually asking for information about non-salary payments to each of the 10 highest earners (by basic salary) at Oriel, although without actually naming them. But although the data is anonymised to the extent that the persons to whom the payment is made aren't named, given the existence of other information available to the data controller, and for that matter in this case other people, e.g. who the employees of Oriel are, their posts and therefore likely level of seniority, the top ten can be identified as individuals.

In all the circumstances of this case, to locate, retrieve and collate this information for the purpose of communicating it to a third party and actually disclosing it to a third party would be unfair and in consequence breach the First Data Protection Principle.

You have the right of appeal through the Council's internal complaints procedure by setting out the grounds of your appeal in writing to the Freedom of Information Officer at:

Freedom of Information & Data Protection Unit

The Archive Centre

Martineau Lane

Norwich NR1 2DQ

e-mail: [Norfolk County Council request email]

Telephone: 01603 222661

If you are dissatisfied after pursuing the complaints procedure, you may apply to the Information Commissioner under Section 50 of the Act for a decision whether your request for information has been dealt with in accordance with the requirements of Part I of the Act. Contact details as follows:-

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

Telephone 01625 545 700

www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

[Deirdre Sharp]

County Archivist: Norfolk Record Office

Dr John Alban

Corporate Freedom of Information Officer:

Deirdre Sharp

Corporate Freedom of Information

and Data Protection Unit

Norfolk County Council

The Archive Centre

Martineau Lane

Norwich, NR1 2DQ

Tel: 01603 - 222661

Fax: 01603 - 761885

E-mail: [Norfolk County Council request email]