Agency costs 2010

Dear Paul Raybould

Information Request 00907

I am in receipt of your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act regarding the cost of agency staffing in 2010.

You are entitled to be informed as to whether or not Devon County
Council holds the information requested, and to have this communicated
to you within 20 working days, subject to the application of any
exemptions under the Act.

You should expect to have received a response to your request by
20/01/2011

Yours sincerely

Martin Lawrence
Corporate Information Governance Officer

Devon County Council
Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall
Exeter
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 384674
Email: [Devon County Council request email]

Disclaimer: http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml
Applicable to private messages: "Devon County Council accepts no legal
responsibility for the contents of this message. The views expressed do
not reflect those of Devon County Council"

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Dear Paul Raybould

Information Request 00907

I am in receipt of your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act regarding agency staff.

Please find Devon County Council's response attached.

<<FOI 00907 - Staffing - Agency Staff Spend.pdf>>
Please note that until we are in receipt of a suitably refined request, we
will be unable to progress your request further, and as such your request
will be placed on hold.

I await further correspondence from you.

Yours sincerely

Martin Lawrence
Corporate Information Governance Officer

Devon County Council
Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall
Exeter
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 384674
Email: [Devon County Council request email]

Your right to complain
If for any reason you are not satisfied with how your request has been
handled, please write to Devon County Council's Freedom of Information
Office, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, EX2 4QD. Details about our
Access to Information complaints procedure can be found at
[1]http://www.devon.gov.uk/complaintshandling. If your complaint is not
resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to refer the
matter to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Re-use of information
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. Use for Direct Marketing purposes is
prohibited. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would
require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by
Devon County Council will have been produced by local officials and will
be our copyright. If you would like to re-use any of the information which
has been supplied to you, please contact us. Information you receive which
is not subject to our copyright continues to be protected by the copyright
of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You
must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any
information.

Disclaimer: [2]http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml
Applicable to private messages: "Devon County Council accepts no legal
responsibility for the contents of this message. The views expressed do
not reflect those of Devon County Council"

References

Visible links
1. http://www.devon.gov.uk/complaintshandling
2. http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml

Dear Mr Raybould,

Information Request: 00907

The request below has not been refined. You are requesting the same
information as in your original request of 19th December 2010, and an
additional piece of information.

As stated in our response of 12th January 2011, we are unable to provide
the information within the appropriate cost of compliance limits. As
previosuly stated, until the time that you are able to provide us with a
suitably refined request, your request will be considered on hold.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Team

Devon County Council
Information Governance
Strategic Intelligence
Office of the Chief Executive
Room L10
County Hall
Topsham Road
Exeter
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 38 4678
Your right to complain
If for any reason you are not satisfied with how your request has been
handled, please write to Devon County Council's Freedom of Information
Office, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, EX2 4QD. Details about our
Access to Information complaints procedure can be found at
[1]http://www.devon.gov.uk/complaintshandling. If your complaint is not
resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to refer the
matter to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Disclaimer: [2]http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml
Applicable to private messages: "Devon County Council accepts no legal
responsibility for the contents of this message. The views expressed do
not reflect those of Devon County Council"

show quoted sections

Dear Paul Raybould

Information Request 00907

I am in receipt of your email below concerning the aforementioned
Freedom of Information Request.

Please note that I am currently reviewing Devon County Council's records
with a view to providing you with a response, which I am to provide you
by 16/02/2011.

Should you have any further queries, please do come back to me and I
will be happy to assist further wherever I can.

Yours sincerely

Martin Lawrence
Corporate Information Governance Officer

Devon County Council
Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall
Exeter
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 384674
Email: [Devon County Council request email]

Disclaimer: http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml
Applicable to private messages: "Devon County Council accepts no legal
responsibility for the contents of this message. The views expressed do
not reflect those of Devon County Council"

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Raybould

Information Request 00907

I am writing following a recent review I have conducted of your request
for information concerning agency staff spend and usage at Devon County
Council. For clarification, our records show you had originally
requested;
"How much was the total cost of Agency Staffing in 2010 and how many
providers did you use."

Please note that subsequent to this investigation I regret to inform you
that Devon County Council's position remains the same, in that we will be
unable to provide you with all the information you have requested within
the 18 hours we are obliged to spend answering Freedom of Information
requests (as defined by the Data Protection and Freedom of Information
Appropriate Limits Regulations 2004). Accordingly we remain of the view
that Section 12 (Cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limits)
of the Freedom of Information Act is engaged at this time.

Devon County Council currently holds finance data pursuant to agency spend
on the council's corporate finance system, and additionally holds
information regarding agency spend details for both schools and
organisations we are in partnership with. Because of the manner in which
this additional agency data is held by Devon County Council, we would be
required to manually remove all data pursuant to schools and third party
organisations, in order to give a figure for Devon County Council.

Further to the above, in order to derive a figure for agency spend, Devon
County Council would be required to run 3 separate reports from our
finance system. Each report is likely to have duplicate information as
the reports are run by directorate, and many incidents of spend would
be spanning more than one directorate. Therefore there would be a need to
cross reference each report in order to de-duplicate this data and provide
an accurate figure.

In the interest of providing clarity, one of the key reports that would be
required, holds budget data that is de-segregated across each directorate,
and the item code that is used to record agency spend appears to have been
used for a variety of different things. There is a short descriptions
field contained on our system which are included on the reports carried
out. However these are not sufficient to discover whether an item is
agency spend data or not, so this data is not easily accessible without
further examination.

Please note that the principle issue with regards to compliance with your
request is owing to the size of the reports that we are required to cross
examine. I have included further detail of the size of these reports
below;

Report 1 = 10,000 records
Report 2 = 4,000 records
Report 3 = 831 records

Given the level of manual manipulation that would be required in order to
comply with your request, we consider that it would take approximately 1
minute per record to be able to derive the agency spend data to which you
refer. Given the figures above, this would equate to 14831 minutes or 247
hours for compliance with this request. Accordingly we are minded to
conclude Section 12 (Cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate
limits) of the Freedom of Information Act to be engaged at this time.

I would reiterate that should you wish to refine your request so as to
limit its scope, we would be happy to look at this again. For example
should you wish us to look at agency spend within a particular business
unit of the council, we will address whether this is possible.

In the interest of providing you with further information, please note
that I have attached a list of Devon County Council's preferred suppliers
with regards to agency staff that I hope you will find useful.

I trust this outlines the position of Devon County Council on this matter.

Yours sincerely

Martin Lawrence
Corporate Information Governance Officer

Devon County Council

Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall

Exeter
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 384674

Email: [1][Devon County Council request email]

Your right to complain
If for any reason you are not satisfied with how your request has been
handled, please write to Devon County Council's Freedom of Information
Office, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, EX2 4QD. Details about our
Access to Information complaints procedure can be found at
[2]http://www.devon.gov.uk/complaintshandling. If your complaint is not
resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to refer the
matter to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Disclaimer: [3]http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml
Applicable to private messages: "Devon County Council accepts no legal
responsibility for the contents of this message. The views expressed do
not reflect those of Devon County Council"

.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Devon County Council request email]
2. http://www.devon.gov.uk/complaintshandling
3. http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml

Dear Mr Raybould

Information Request 00907

I am in receipt of your recent correspondence concerning your Freedom of
Information request regarding the cost of agency staff. Please note
that a response to your Internal review has been provided and is
attached.

If you are not satisfied with my response to your internal review, you
have the right to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner's
Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Martin Lawrence
Corporate Information Governance Officer

Devon County Council
Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall
Exeter
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 384674
Email: [Devon County Council request email]

Disclaimer: http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml
Applicable to private messages: "Devon County Council accepts no legal
responsibility for the contents of this message. The views expressed do
not reflect those of Devon County Council"

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Raybould

Information Request 00907

Further to your recent correspondence with the Information Commissioner's
Office, I note your clarified request in which you have requested
information regarding agency spend from Devon County Council for the month
of August 2010. Please note that following further interrogation of our
records, I am able to provide you with a response (attached).
I hope this information is of assistance to you and I trust this brings
this matter to a satisfactory conclusion.
Yours sincerely

Martin Lawrence
Corporate Information Governance Officer

Devon County Council

Strategic Intelligence
Room L10
County Hall

Exeter
EX2 4QD
Tel: 01392 384674

Email: [1][Devon County Council request email]

Your right to complain
If for any reason you are not satisfied with how your request has been
handled, please write to Devon County Council's Freedom of Information
Office, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, EX2 4QD. Details about our
Access to Information complaints procedure can be found at
[2]http://www.devon.gov.uk/complaintshandling. If your complaint is not
resolved to your complete satisfaction, you have the right to refer the
matter to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Re-use of information
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. Use for Direct Marketing purposes is
prohibited. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would
require the permission of the copyright holder. Most documents supplied by
Devon County Council will have been produced by local officials and will
be our copyright. If you would like to re-use any of the information which
has been supplied to you, please contact us. Information you receive which
is not subject to our copyright continues to be protected by the copyright
of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. You
must ensure that you gain their permission before reproducing any
information.

Disclaimer: [3]http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml
Applicable to private messages: "Devon County Council accepts no legal
responsibility for the contents of this message. The views expressed do
not reflect those of Devon County Council"

*Please note that emails may be disclosed in response to requests under
the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[Devon County Council request email]
2. http://www.devon.gov.uk/complaintshandling
3. http://www.devon.gov.uk/email.shtml