Training Costs

Dear Mr Bowden

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request below. This has been logged under reference 10025.3- 258 and passed to the appropriate department. You should expect to receive a reply within 20 working days, being 24 February 2009.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE THAT THE DISCLAIMER AT THE END OF YOUR ORIGINAL "WHAT DO THEY KNOW.COM" EMAIL STATES THAT THE INFORMATION PROVIDED WILL BE PUT ON THEIR "WHAT DO THEY KNOW" WEBSITE. THIS WOULD AMOUNT TO A RE-USE OF INFORMATION AND PLEASE NOTE THAT BEFORE DOING SO, AN APPLICANT MUST SPECIFICALLY REQUEST PERMISSION FROM THE COUNCIL, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE RELEVANT RE-USE OF PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION REGULATIONS 2005 AND THE COUNCIL'S OWN POLICY DOCUMENT / FORM UNDER THE PUBLICATION SCHEME (AVAILABLE VIA THE INTERNET.) SUCH A REQUEST WOULD BE CONSIDERED SEPARATELY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REGULATIONS AND IS NOT AUTOMATIC. SEE LINK TO COUNCIL POLICY AND GUIDANCE FORMS FOR APPLICATION: http://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/docs/publica.... THEREFORE NO PERMISSION IS IMPLIED IN THE RE-USE OF THIS INFORMATION, UNTIL SUCH REQUEST TO RE-USE IS MADE AND AGREED, SUBJECT TO ANY APPROPRIATE CONDITIONS. I HAVE ATTACHED A LINK TO THE REGULATIONS FOR EASE OF REFERENCE:http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/2005151....

Regards
Local Land Charges

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Dear Mr Bowden

I refer to your recent FOI enquiry regarding External Training costs for Members and Council employees. Please find attached spreadsheet showing details of external training East Cambs. staff have attended for the years 2005/6, 2006/7 and 2007/8.

The course title will hopefully explain the type of training delivered and to what groups of staff and the training provider is shown in the majority of cases. If a provider is not shown, this is because the information was not available to the HR Section at the time the course details were recorded on the individual's training record. If there are two entries for the same course, on the same date, this means that two staff members attended that course.

The total cost for external training for this period is given below:-

Year Cost

2005/6 £33,436.15
2006/7 £38,300.15
2007/8 £40,186.93

Please note that these figures exclude qualification based training.

I am not able to give a breakdown of the expenses claimed by staff in for each individual training course, but give below the total expenses associated with external training claimed for each financial year.

Training Expenses

2005/6 2006/7 2007/8

£10,370.80 £11,385.95 £11,571.55

I have obtained information on Member Training from the Principal Democratic Services Officer - this is shown below.

Information on actual Member Training spending for last 3 years attached in document below. Member Training is split into 3 categories:

in-house training - external trainers employed to deliver training to groups of Members on specific issues e.g. Licensing, Planning, Disability Awareness Training - total Budget for current year £6,739

External training - to provide individual Councillors training on external courses. The total budget is pro-rata by the number of Members in each political group and the proportions in the current year are as follows:

Conservatives (24 Members) £4,390
Lib Democrat (13 Members) £2,378
Independents (2 Members) £366

Conferences - £2,637 overall Budget in current year

Member training/conferences are 'approved duties' for travel and subsistence purposes and as such are claimed on their standard Members Allowances claim form and come out of the overall Members Allowances Budget. Our Member mileage rate is 46.9p per mile and Members can claim standard or second class rail/bus fare. We provide a buffet for in-house training sessions, where appropriate, and the cost of these is usually £4.50 per head. Our Members rarely stay overnight for training or conferences, the one exception I can think of being the Standards Board Conference, and we usually book the accommodation on their behalf to ensure the most competitive rates. I'm afraid that the time it would take to extract the detail of the costs from the Members Allowances data would be prohibitive.

I hope this answers your query.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE THAT THE DISCLAIMER AT THE END OF YOUR ORIGINAL "WHAT DO THEY KNOW.COM" EMAIL STATES THAT THE INFORMATION PROVIDED WILL BE PUT ON THEIR "WHAT DO THEY KNOW" WEBSITE. THIS WOULD AMOUNT TO A RE-USE OF INFORMATION AND PLEASE NOTE THAT BEFORE DOING SO, AN APPLICANT MUST SPECIFICALLY REQUEST PERMISSION FROM THE COUNCIL, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE RELEVANT RE-USE OF PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION REGULATIONS 2005 AND THE COUNCIL'S OWN POLICY DOCUMENT / FORM UNDER THE PUBLICATION SCHEME (AVAILABLE VIA THE INTERNET.) SUCH A REQUEST WOULD BE CONSIDERED SEPARATELY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REGULATIONS AND IS NOT AUTOMATIC. SEE LINK TO COUNCIL POLICY AND GUIDANCE FORMS FOR APPLICATION: http://www.eastcambs.gov.uk/docs/publica.... THEREFORE NO PERMISSION IS IMPLIED IN THE RE-USE OF THIS INFORMATION, UNTIL SUCH REQUEST TO RE-USE IS MADE AND AGREED, SUBJECT TO ANY APPROPRIATE CONDITIONS. I HAVE ATTACHED A LINK TO THE REGULATIONS FOR EASE OF REFERENCE:http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/2005151....

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