Bullying and Harassment

Dear Ms Gray

Re: Information Request - Reference Number: 2008120008

Thank you for your request for information received on 5 December 2008. We
are currently processing your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and will respond to you within 20 working days.

For clarification we are using the following information for the purpose of
processing your request.

For the period from 1 August 2004 to 31 October 2008:
i) Number of staff absent from work due to either stress, anxiety,
depression or a combination.
ii) Number of complaints of bullying made by employees against managers or
colleagues.
iii) Number of employees who claimed constructive dismissal for
bullying/harassment.
iv) Number of claims filed against the council at the Employment Tribunal
for bullying and harassment.

If you feel the information is inaccurate or requires amendment, please
notify us as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Heather Jones
Assistant Information Governance Officer
Shropshire County Council
01743 252179

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Dear Ms Gray

Further to your recent Freedom of Information request which we received on
5 December 2008, please find below the information you require.

1) How many employees of the Council have been absent from work due
to either stress, anxiety, depression or any combination of those ailments
between 01 August 2004 and 31 October 2008.

A total of 292 employees.

2) How many complaints of bullying have been made by employees of
the Council against managers or colleagues during the same period?

A total of 22 cases.

3) Please confirm how many employees have claimed constructive
dismissal within the same period for bullying/harassment.

A total of 2 cases.

4) Please confirm how many claims have been filed against the
Council at the Employment Tribunal (ET) within the same period for
bullying/harassment.

A total of 2 cases.
Please note that 1 case was settled and no ET held and one case
was rejected at ET.

Please note that the answers to Questions 2 to 4 relate to the period 1
January 2006 to 31 October 2008 only. To provide the data for the period
1 August 2004 to 31 December 2005 would require going through manual files
and it is estimated that this would take more than 18 hours of staff time
to collate. This would exceed the appropriate cost limit for Local
Authorities of £450 (for providing information under the Freedom of
Information Act). Therefore, on this occasion, we are unable to meet your
request in full.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 this letter is a
part refusal notice to your request. If you are not in agreement you are
able to make a complaint through the Shropshire County Council complaints
procedure, details of which can be found on our website
www.shropshire.gov.uk, or by contacting me for a complaints leaflet. You
are also able to ask the Information Commissioner to intervene on your
behalf. If you wish to contact the Information Commissioner you can find
more details at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk or by telephone on
01625 545700.

We are sorry that we cannot answer your request in full on this occasion
but trust that you find the information we have supplied useful.

If you should require any further information, please do not hesitate to
contact me.

Yours sincerely

Heather Jones
Assistant Information Governance Officer
01743 252179

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Case reference: 2008120008

Dear Ms Gray

Thank you for your e-mail. We will review our response as requested.

Heather Jones
Assistant Information Governance Officer

From: Vicky Gray <[FOI #4549 email]>
Date: 09/01/2009 15:33:21
To: FOI requests at Shropshire County Council
<[Shropshire Council request email]>
Subject: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - Bullying and
Harassment

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Dear Ms Gray

Further to your email of 9 January requesting us to review our response to
your initial request, we reply as follows:

Access to information for the period 1 August 2004 to 31 December 2005

• We do not hold data centrally on a database in relation to
complaints of bullying/harassment for the period 1 August 2004 to 31
December 2005. We only started recording this information from the 1
January 2006 which was when a new HR system to hold this type of data was
implemented. We did not keep information centrally before on our old
system.

• We hold approximately 10,000 employee files (not including
leavers files which total several thousand) which are manually stored
across a number of teams. To review each of these files would take in
excess of the £450 or 2 half days as each file can be 10 to 100 pages in
volume. Not as speculated, we do not order our personal files in the way
you suggest we might. To date we have spent over ½ a day in responding
to your request.

We therefore stand by our original decision not to reply to this
element of your request on cost grounds, as detailed in our original
reply.

• We categorise our monitoring information into Bullying and
Harassment. Therefore, we have responded to the ‘constructive
dismissal’ question in relation to the information held.

Constructive Dismissal and Bullying and Harassment making reference to the
employee directly.

• We have responded that we had 2 claims of constructive
dismissal from employees which related to bullying and harassment and
believe that this answers your question.

• These 2 cases are also the same 2 cases we have mentioned in
answer to the question on the number of Employment Tribunal cases that
have been filed against the Council in relation to Bullying and
Harassment.

Following receipt of your email dated 9 January 2009 we have had the
opportunity to review our reporting mechanisms in relation to the
following question you asked:

1) How many employees of the Council have been absent from work due
to either stress, anxiety, depression or any combination of those ailments
between 01 August 2004 and 31 October 2008.

Our initial response to you was that 292 employees met the above criteria.
However, from 2004 to 2007 our reporting systems held a large amount of
sickness in a category called ‘Other’. We have had an opportunity to
undertake rurther analysis and drill-down of this category shows a number
of employees’ sickness absence relates to stress, anxiety, depression or
combination of those ailments. Therefore, the revised number of employees
in answer to the above question is 1,857.

We apologise for giving inaccurate information initially but trust that
you understand the difficulties associated with reporting on data going
back several years.

Yours sincerely

Roy Morris
Information Governance Officer

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Dear Ms Gray,

Further your email of 1 February, we reply as follows to the additional
queries you have raised:
1. Employees prefer to deal with any issues of bullying and
harrassment informally and there are a variety of referral methods
available to raise concerns.

2. We do not record this information centrally, having a devolved
system. As stated above, the vast majority are dealt with informally. Any
significant cases are then dealt with formally and
recorded. We have already provided the information on these formal cases.

We would like to assure you that we are not trying to conceal any
information from you and are trying to be of assistance in your request.
However, we do not record the information in the manner in which you
believe we should. Therefore, to provide the information would, as already
communicated, exceed the cost threshhold for providing information under
the Freedom of Information Act.
Yours sincerely
Roy Morris
Information Governance Officer
Tel: 01743 252774

Vicky Gray To [email address]
<[FOI #4549 email]> cc
Subject Internal review of Freedom
01/02/2009 12:29 of Information request -
Bullying and Harassment

Dear Mr Morris

With regards to the number of staff absent, how can you initially
claim 292 and end up with 1857 is beyond me.The format in which you
choose to record information is irrelevant,under the provisions of
the FOIA, you have a duty to confirm or deny if the information
exists – you have not directly confirmed this, but the inference is
that it does.

Therefore, if the information exists, you are required to disclose
it unless an exemption applies. I am mindful that you have cited
the ‘costs’ exemption, yet section 16 of the FOIA imposes upon you
a duty to provide advice and assistance. Yet you have not done so.

You have done nothing to assist me in seeking to find a way that
would help me obtain the information I am requesting.

Whilst I am aware that the draftsmen of the Freedom of Information
Act had a brief from the government to make it as difficult as
possible for the public to actually get information and as easy as
possible for public authorities to refuse it. The concept of a
member of staff on a salary in excess of £48000 per year combing
through files (which is what a £25 per hour salary equates to),
when the task could be just as easily done by a temp on the
National Minimum Wage is a joke and the stipulation in the fees
regulations that this is a reasonable determination of cost is
ridiculous and nothing more in my view, than a government sponsored
legal device to enable authorities to be as restrictive as
possible.

If the council has no records of bullying, what happens when a
member of staff alleges bullying is it ignored? Who actually holds
the information on bullying, as this is confidential information?
As a council one would expect you would employ a welfare officer,
who would be advised of all who had said they were being bullied,
it would be part of your duty of care under both the Health &
Safety At Work Act 1974 and also under most contracts of
employment. Details would have to be passed to that person or an
appointed person in HR.

Under the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974 if member of staff
resigned and stated this was due to bullying the council would have
to keep a record of this and know doubt the member of staff would
cite this claim in an employment tribunal. On the one hand you are
saying it is not recorded (which I presume you are meaning is not
held), but you then say it would take too long and exceed the costs
limit to respond? If you haven’t got the data, how can you respond
and if you have, why have you said it is not recorded?

Therefore the only conclusion I can draw is that you are
purposefully seeking to conceal the number of cases of bullying
within your organisation.

Thank you for your full co-operation and assistance and please do
remember you have a legal duty to provide the correct up to date
information.

Your sincerely

Vicky Gray

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