1 Horse Guards Road, Information Rights Unit
London.
SW1A 2HQ
Tel: 020 7270 4558
Fax: 020 7451 4861
Leon Bond
public.enquiries@hm-treasury.gov.uk
www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
By email:
request-702-a9e2d112@whatdotheyknow.com
Our refs:
IRU/8/338
and foi@sandwich.ukcod.org.uk
Email/9680/2008
4th July 2008
Dear Mr. Bond,
Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act 2000. Your request was dated 11th June 2008 and we received it on 12th June 2008.
You asked for:
1. A copy of the most recent listing of civil service bodies that are responsible for negotiating independently with their own staff on pay increases.
2. A copy of the most recent estimate or calculation of the sum total resources required annually across all civil service bodies to undertake the different pay negotiations. By resources, I am referring to total staff time, total staff numbers required and/or financial costs involved.
Request 1
Pay for civil servants below the Senior Civil Service (SCS) is set through the pay remit process. This process covers civil servants in Government departments and Executive Agencies, as well as public sector workers in Executive Non-departmental Public Bodies (ENDPBs). All of these organisations are responsible for negotiating independently with their own staff on pay increases within a pay envelope agreed with HM Treasury or the organisation’s sponsor department. A comprehensive list of
departments, Agencies and ENDPBs can be found in the Civil Service yearbook, available online at http://www.civil-service.co.uk. As this information is accessible to you in this way it is formally exempt from release under section 21 of the Act. This applies even though information may only be accessible at a cost.
Pay increases for the Senior Civil Service are based on the recommendations of the Senior Salaries Review Body. Once it has made its recommendations and if they are
accepted by the Government, departments are then responsible for how that award is allocated to individual members of staff.
Request 2
Information regarding the total resources required to undertake pay negotiations is not held by the Treasury. Nor do we believe that any Public Authority holds this information as a composite set of information. To produce such information would be
a large task requiring an approach to be made to each organisation that carries out
pay negotiations. Under the terms of the Act public authorities are not required to collect or create information in order to respond to a request
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact us at the email account above. It would be helpful to us if you could remember to quote the IRU reference number given in the header to this letter in any future communications.
Yours sincerely,
Balvinder Chowdhary Information Rights Unit
On behalf of HM Treasury
Crown Copyright. The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it
for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re- use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by the
Treasury will have been produced by Government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements
for re-using Crown Copyright on HMSOnline at: http://www.hmso.gov.uk/copyright/licences/click-use-home.htm
Your right to complain under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request and wish to make a complaint or request a review
of our decision, you should write within two months of the date of this letter to HM Treasury, Information Rights Unit, 2/SW, 1 Horse Guards Road, London SW1A 2HQ.
Email: public.enquiries@hm-treasury.gov.uk
If you are not content with the outcome your complaint, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Treasury. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.