Financial value of post-dismissal compensation settlements

Dear University of Cambridge,

In response to a previous Freedom of Information request[1] you
have stated that the University agreed 4 post-dismissal
compensation settlements in the period December 2008 to 13
December 2009. For each post-dismissal compensation settlement
since December 2008, please tell me the amount agreed (in pounds)
in the settlement. If the exact amounts cannot be revealed due to
data protection concerns, I am happy to accept the amounts to the
nearest appropriate figure (provided you indicate this figure in
your response), cf. the "When should salaries be disclosed?"
guidance note[2].

Also, if it is possible to provide the following information
without revealing personal data in a way which would be unfair, for
each amount, please indicate the category of dismissed staff
(academic, academic-related, etc.) with whom the settlement was
made.

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles

[1]
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ap...

[2]
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

Dear FOI,

You will no doubt be aware of the timetable given in the "Joint
Report of the Council and the General Board on disciplinary,
dismissal, and grievance procedures: Notice and announcement of
ballot" as printed on page 552 of the Reporter, No 6179:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2009...

This gives 12 March 2010 as the deadline for the receipt by the
Registrary of fly-sheets to be circulated with the voting papers
for this ballot. As you are probably also aware, one of the issues
in the discussion of the proposed reforms that are the subject of
this ballot is the cost to the University of dismissal proceedings
under the current arrangements.

Consequently I would strongly encourage you to provide the
requested information sufficiently far in advance of 12 March 2010
that those contemplating writing fly-sheets have adequate time to
consider any information unearthed by this request. I would also
observe that the Information Commissioner is likely to view a delay
as grounds for issuing a Decision Notice against the University
("the effect of delay or other non-compliance served the purposes
of the public authority and requires censure in an adverse Decision
Notice (e.g. avoiding disclosure at a critical time)"):

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Dear University of Cambridge,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of University of
Cambridge's handling of my FOI request 'Financial value of
post-dismissal compensation settlements'.

In the University's refusal of my request, it has said the
information I require is exempt under Sections 40(2) and 40(3) of
the Freedom of Information Act (2000). However, in order for these
exemptions to be engaged the information in question must be (or
contain) "personal data" in the sense of Section 1(1) of the Data
Protection Act 1998, the relevant part of which reads:

"personal data" means data which relate to a living individual who
can be identified—
(a) from those data, or
(b) from those data and other information which is in the
possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the
data controller,

The only data I have about the individuals in question is that they
left the University at some point in the past and, at some point
since their departure, reached a financial settlement with the
University. I therefore cannot see how it would be possible for me
to associate the information I have requested with any identifiable
individuals. Consequently I do not believe that this information is
personal data (in the sense specified above) and so Section 40(2)
(and consequently Section 40(3)) of the Freedom of Information Act
(2000) are not engaged.

The University has also said that it is relying on Section 43 "as
disclosure of the information would be likely to prejudice the
commercial interests of the University by making public the level
at which it is prepared potentially to compromise individual
claims". However, this does not seem reasonable to me for the
following reasons:

(a) One of the principal guiding factors in determining the
settlement amounts of unfair dismissal claims will be the maximum
and average amounts awarded by employment tribunals, and these are
a matter of public record.

(b) In any individual case the other significant determining
factors are likely to be specific to the individual, such as the
individual's salary, length of service, reason for dismissal, the
University's assessment of the likelihood of an employment tribunal
finding for the individual, and so on. Furthermore, one would
expect that the individual's union or legal advisors would advise
them of this, should it not be obvious to them.

(c) No other details of the cases of the individuals with whom the
University has reached these settlements would be made available by
the University releasing the information requested here. As noted
in (b) above, other than information which is already public (such
as (a) above), it is specific details which would be expected to
the deciding factor in the value of the compensation settlement.
Consequently, should a future individual wishing to negotiate
compensation with the University attempt to refer to these figures,
they could be truthfully told that those figures would only be
applicable to individuals in similar circumstances and, as the
relevant circumstances are not a matter of public record, the
figures are irrelevant to their particular case.

Thus even if the figures were released it seems unlikely that the
University's commercial interests would be prejudiced. I further
observe that, concerning claims that releasing the requested
information "would be likely to prejudice", in the Information
Tribunal hearing of John Connor Press Associates Limited v The
Information Commissioner (EA/2005/0005) the tribunal stated that:

"the chance of prejudice being suffered should be more than a
hypothetical possibility; there must have been a real and
significant risk".

I do not feel that there is such a risk, and certainly the
University has not, to date, made any arguments that demonstrate "a
real and significant risk" in this regard. However, even if it were
likely that the University's commercial interests would be
prejudiced, I believe that the public interest in releasing this
information outweighs the public interest in disclosure for the
following reasons:

(1) The University is currently attempting to reform its dismissal
procedures, in part on the basis that the existing procedures are
inadequate. However, the University has, to date, provided very
little evidence to back up this claim. There is therefore a
significant public interest in knowing how much the existing
procedures are costing the University and one reasonable way of
measuring this is by looking at the values of the dismissal
settlements made by the University with former employees.

(2) The University is a publicly funded body - if the University is
failing to following proper procedures in dealing with staff such
that it has to make significant financial settlements against
unfairly dismissed staff, then it is clearly in the public interest
that this be revealed. But even if the University is following
proper procedures with respect to dealing with its staff, there is
still a public interest in the University being accountable for how
its money is spent.

In addition, I wish to complain that the University has failed to
comply with Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) as
it has failed "to provide advice and assistance" in relation to
this request. Specifically, if the University genuinely believes
that the individual compensation amounts are "personal data" and so
exempt, it could still have provided me with an aggregated total
amount for all the settlements and/or the average settlement
amount, both of which clearly are not "personal data". Further,
even if the University genuinely believes there is some likelihood
of risk to its commercial interests in disclosing exact figures,
any such risk is clearly less with respect to the derived figures,
and, in particular, considerably less with respect to the
aggregated total amount. I therefore feel that, if the University
felt the actual information requested was exempt, it should have
offered to provide me with these derived figures.

I also wish to complain that the University has failed to properly
comply with section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) by
failing to provide its reasons for its belief that the public
interest in not disclosing the information requested outweighs the
public interest in disclosing it, and by failing to explain which
exemption in Section 43 it is relying on.

Furthermore, I wish to complain that the University has failed to
comply with Section 10(1) of the Freedom of Information Act (2000)
as its response has not been "prompt" (as is required by Section
10(1)). The arguments used by the University as to why Sections
40(2), 40(3) and 43 apply are reasonably general arguments that are
concerned with the general nature of the information requested
rather than the specific data that made up that information. Making
those arguments therefore should not have required the University
to actually retrieve that information. It is difficult, therefore,
to see why this refusal could not have been communicated to me much
sooner.

In addition, as was communicated to the University in my e-mail of
22 February 2010, there were particular circumstances which meant
that it was particularly important that the information requested
was received before 1pm on 12 March 2010. (Note that this deadline
was set by the University itself on 17 February 2010, which was
after I had made my original request.) In light of this, the
University's decision to communicate its refusal to provide the
requested information to me at about 2:30pm on 12 March 2010 could
be construed as an attempt to delay providing the requested
information (or reasons why that information could not be provided)
that served the purposes of the University authorities, namely to
prevent that information being used in fly-sheets for the upcoming
ballot on the proposed reforms to the University's Statute U:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2009...

Finally, I would remind you that the Information Commissioner's
Office has already had occasion to communicate with the University
regarding its failure to carry out internal reviews of FOI requests
in a reasonable time period (ICO Case Reference Number FS50246295).
I would hope, therefore, that this request for an internal review
would be handled in accordance with the Information Commissioner's
guidance regarding the time limits on carrying out internal
reviews:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

I would also hope that, taking into account that voting in the
aforementioned ballot is expected to commence around 23 April 2010,
the review will be held (and its results communicated to me)
promptly.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/fi...

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles