Dear Mr Blair,

Freedom of Information request

Thank you for your letter which was received on 2 February 2009 in which you asked for information relating to Agency worker Agreements, Contracts, pay scales.

I attach an invitation to tender as the agency contract is currently under negotiated.

Section 43(2) exempts information, disclosure of which would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person. Section 43(2) is a prejudice-based exemption, so the test for exemption is whether or not the commercial interests referred to in the section would, or would be likely to, be prejudiced by disclosure.

As no contract has been awarded, we consider any further tender information to be exempt under Section 43 - Commercial Interests. Any disclosure at this delicate stage of negotiation would cause prejudice to Council's commercial interests, i.e. by harming its ability to conduct an effective competition, which requires encouraging the provision of full information by tenderers and maintaining strict equity amongst the tenderers.

We also consider that the commercial interests of third parties could potentially be compromised particularly the ability of the firm with whom the Council has a contract with to competitively bid as part of the tendering process.

The following are a list of temporary recruitment contract partners.

Select Appointments

Select Accountancy

HRI

Select Direct

Abraxas

Parkhouse

Medicare

BBT

Bandenoch and Clark

The link below contains the agency supplier list.

http://staffroom.hackney.gov.uk/agency-supplier-list.doc

We do not record this information on hourly pay-scales/rates centrally. We can only provide information from finance relating to invoices paid and the amount paid per month. It does not relate to when the services where provided, and the position they were covering.

Section 12 of the Act, the Council is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the costs of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 has set the appropriate limit as £450 based on a charge at £25 per hour.

Details of courses are not recorded on any of our databases. We estimate that to provide you with details of all the hourly pay-scales/rates would exceed the cost limit as it would involve having to contact every manager within each service directorate and requesting that they search for details of invoices paid.

I regret to say that I am not in a position to respond to this aspect of your request. However I hope to be in a position to be able to by the end of this week.

If you are dissatisfied with this response and wish to appeal, please write to the Information Governance Team, Appeals, 6-15 Florfield Road, Hackney London E8 1DTand your complaint will be dealt with through our Internal Review procedure.

If you are still not satisfied following the Internal Review, you have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner. He can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF 
Telephone: 01625 545 700

Yours sincerely

Reaz Khedarun

Corporate Information Governance Officer

ICT

Christine Peacock, Head of ICT, 6- 15 Florfield Road, Reading Lane, London E8 1DT

E8 1DT