Confidentiality payments to departing employees

Dear Ms. Fletcher

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thank you for your request received on 23 May 2011 requesting information
about additional payments made to Council staff.

Your request is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and will be answered within 20 working days.

While no charges are made for the submission of requests, the council is
entitled to apply reasonable costs for disbursements (i.e. photocopying,
postage etc). Where such costs are under £5.00 the council is pleased
to make no charge, however, if costs exceed that limit then these
additional costs are payable to the council. Where charges will
apply proper notice will be given to you prior to the information being
released. For more information on charges please use the following link
to our website:
[1]http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/CouncilandDemo...

If you have any queries about this request do not hesitate to contact us.
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
communications.

Yours sincerely,

Adele Rhodes Girling
Information Compliance Officer
Corporate Information and Records Management
Information and Data Management
Suffolk County Council
Endeavour House
Russell Road
Ipswich
IP1 2BX

Tel: 01473 264618
Fax: 01473 216824
Email: [2][email address]
Web: [3]www.suffolk.gov.uk

Emails sent to and from this organisation will be monitored in accordance
with the law to ensure compliance with policies and to minimise any
security risks.
The information contained in this email or any of its attachments may
be privileged or confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of
the addressee. Any unauthorised use may be unlawful. If you receive
this email by mistake, please advise the sender immediately by using
the reply facility in your email software.

References

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2. mailto:[email address]
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Dear Ms. Fletcher

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - PARTIAL RELEASE

Thank you for your request received on 23 May 2011 requesting information
about additional payments made to Council staff. We have now completed
searching for the information you requested.

Please find enclosed a copy of the information which can be disclosed.

The remainder of the information that you requested is exempt under
sections 12 and 21 of the Freedom of Information Act and is therefore
withheld. Full details of these exemptions are contained within the
attached response.

Of necessity this response has to include reference to legislation. If
anything is unclear please do not hesitate to contact us.

Most information supplied by Suffolk County Council will have been
produced within the Council and will continue to be protected by
copyright. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including for
private study and non-commercial research, and for any other purpose
authorised by an exception in current copyright law. Documents (except
photographs) can be also used in the UK without requiring permission for
the purposes of news reporting. Any other reuse, for example commercial
publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.

If the information you have been sent includes a copyright statement, you
must not alter or remove this statement. For information about re-using
copyright see the Office of Public Sector Information website at
[1]www.opsi.gov.uk. The copyright in some documents may rest with a third
party. For information about obtaining permission from a third party see
the Intellectual Property Office's website at [2]www.ipo.gov.uk.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the
right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be
submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your
original letter and should be addressed to: Head of Corporate Information
and Records Management, Endeavour House, 8 Russell Road, Ipswich, Suffolk,
IP1 2BX or, alternatively, by email for the attention of the Head of
Corporate Information and Records Management at
[3][email address].

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future
Communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have
the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9
5AF.

Yours faithfully,

Adele Rhodes Girling
Information Compliance Officer
Corporate Information and Records Management
Information and Data Management
Suffolk County Council
Endeavour House
Russell Road
Ipswich
IP1 2BX

Tel: 01473 264618
Fax: 01473 216824
Email: [4][email address]
Web: [5]www.suffolk.gov.uk

Emails sent to and from this organisation will be monitored in accordance
with the law to ensure compliance with policies and to minimise any
security risks.
The information contained in this email or any of its attachments may
be privileged or confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of
the addressee. Any unauthorised use may be unlawful. If you receive
this email by mistake, please advise the sender immediately by using
the reply facility in your email software.

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/www.opsi.gov.uk
2. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/
3. mailto:[email address]
4. mailto:[email address]
5. file:///tmp/www.suffolk.gov.uk

Dear Ms. Fletcher

We are sorry that you are unhappy with the response to your access to
information request 3542 (additional payments made to Council staff).

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) and Environmental
Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) we will conduct an internal review of
our response.

Internal reviews are conducted by the Head of Corporate Information and
Records and we aim to complete them within 20 working days.

Kind regards

Adele Rhodes Girling

Information Compliance Officer

Corporate Information and Records

Information and Data Management

Suffolk County Council

Endeavour House, Russell Road, Ipswich, Suffolk IP1 2BX

Tel: 01473 264618

Fax: 01473 216824

Email: [1][email address]

Web: [2]www.suffolkcc.gov.uk

Emails sent to and from this organisation will be monitored in accordance
with the law to ensure compliance with policies and to minimise any
security risks.
The information contained in this email or any of its attachments may
be privileged or confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of
the addressee. Any unauthorised use may be unlawful. If you receive
this email by mistake, please advise the sender immediately by using
the reply facility in your email software.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.suffolkcc.gov.uk/
http://www.suffolkcc.gov.uk/

Dear Ms Fletcher

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INTERNAL REVIEW DECISION (FOI Request
No. 3542)

I am writing with regard to your request under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 to this Council (reference 3542) which resulted in you being
dissatisfied with the outcome.

I can confirm that I have now completed the internal review of the
response you received, having revisited your request with relevant senior
officers.

Your original request extended to five parts, as below:
It is reported that some employees of the Council who have left the
Council's employment during this year (and possibly before) have, in
addition to whatever severance payments were due in furtherance of
statutory entitlement and any other entitlement afforded them by their
personal terms of employment, been paid additional monies conditional upon
their agreements to maintain secret Council matters known to them during
their employment.
1. Please advise the number of such additional payments made to Council
staff or former staff from January 1st 2010 to the present day in relation
to confidentiality or similar agreements and itemise the individual
payments made.
2. Please provide the name and position of the Council officer and/or
elected member (additional to the Chief Executive) who authorised these
payments.
3. Please advise all of the statutory and/or other established documented
power (if any) that has enabled this expenditure of Council money to
persons as payment for no material benefit to the tax payer.
4. Please advise all of the statutory and/or other established documented
power (if any) available to a Council officer to require an employee to
maintain silence after ceasing employment with the Council on any matter
relating to his/her former employment with the Council other than in
furtherance of any enablement in pursuance of the terms and condition of
the subject person's contract of employment.
5. If any such payments have been made please provide copies of
documentary evidence held by the Council that shows how they are
commensurate with the duty of the Council's officers and members to
provide an honest, open, and transparent service to the community it
serves in pursuit of providing best value for the income at its disposal.

I have noted that the original response to you included full answers to
questions three, four and five.

In focusing on questions one and two, the original response to you
explained that the information was being refused on the grounds that,
under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, public
authorities are not obliged to comply with requests where the cost of so
doing would exceed the 'appropriate limit' provided for by the
legislation. This limit is set at £450 for local authorities and,
calculated on the statutory basis of £25 per hour, equates to 18 hours
of staff time. In seeking to engage this section, any estimates made by
authorities must be reasonable but, in any event, be based upon the time
it takes to determine if the information is held and then to locate,
retrieve and extract that information.

Although I am sure you will be disappointed, I have to say, having
examined the situation, that there are no grounds on which to suggest that
the original response to you was unreasonable. Your request covered an
extended period (1 January 2010 to the receipt of your request on 25 May
2011). In response to previous requests under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000 the Council has issued the total number of compromise agreements
entered into in 2009-2010 and in 2010-2011. Your request is even more
problematic in that it cuts across financial years and, of course, moves
into 2011-2012. Given the way that the information is held, plus the
potential numbers involved, it would (in simple terms) be necessary to
identify the relevant personnel, retrieve the files (including from a
secure off-site facility), review/scrutinise each agreement, separate
different payments, and perform various calculations to extract the
required data. I have to say that I am satisfied that this is an involved
process and that the estimate that this would exceed 18 staff hours was
arrived at reasonably and properly.

That being said, and further to the internal review, I can find no
evidence that the Council properly complied with its requirement to advise
and assist you, e.g. to help you refine your request such that it might be
brought within the 'appropriate limit'. I must apologise on the Council's
behalf that this was not done. In the event that you can or would still
want to do this, then please do not hesitate to contact Information
Management Services (01473 264618;
[1][email address]).

For your information, you may like to know that the Council's Annual
Statement of Accounts, when published, is now required to include details
of all termination payments made to staff who were earning in excess of
£50,000. This may go some way towards satisfying your request, for the
period 2010-2011 at least.

Finally, please be advised that you have the right to contact the
Information Commissioner (who monitors adherence with the Act) if you feel
the internal review has not been handled to your satisfaction. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Wycliff House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Web Site: [2]http://www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

Doug Reed

Head of Corporate Information and Records
Suffolk County Council
Endeavour House
Russell Road
Ipswich
IP1 2BX

Tel: 01473 264618
Fax: 01473 216824
Email: [3][email address]
Web: [4]www.suffolk.gov.uk

Emails sent to and from this organisation will be monitored in accordance
with the law to ensure compliance with policies and to minimise any
security risks.
The information contained in this email or any of its attachments may
be privileged or confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of
the addressee. Any unauthorised use may be unlawful. If you receive
this email by mistake, please advise the sender immediately by using
the reply facility in your email software.

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
3. mailto:[email address]
4. http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/