Bullying and Harassment

The request was partially successful.

Dear Sir/Madam

I would like to know how many employees of the city council have
been absent from work due to either stress, anxiety, depression or
any combination of those ailments between 1st August 2004 and 31st
October 2008.

Please also confirm how many complaints of bullying have been made
by employees of the council against managers or colleagues during
the same period.

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

Please confirm how many claims have been filed against the city
council at the Employment Tribunal within the same period for bullying/harassment.

I would ask that you remember the statutory duty imposed upon
public authorities by virtue of Section 16 of the Freedom of
Information Act to provide advice and assistance to requesters. If
for any reason you are leaning toward rejecting any part of this
request or if you plan to argue that it is unmanageable or
unanswerable in any way then I would expect you to contact me
promptly to find ways to answer this request to our mutual
satisfaction.

Yours sincerely

Vicky Gray

Yvonne Norman Budget & Finance Analyst, HR Corporate Services, Essex County Council

Dear Vicky

Could you confirm please if you need this information from Chelmsford
Borough Council or Essex County Council?

It has been received by Essex County Council but you mention city council
in your request.

Yours sincerely

Yvonne Norman

HR Corporate Services

Finance and Budget Analyst

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 436229| extension: 30229 | email:
[email address]

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Dear Yvonne Norman

Thank you for your Prompt response could you please provide the information on bullying and harassment for both Chelmsford Borough Council and Essex County Council.

Thank you for your assistance.

Yours sincerely

Vicky Gray

Yvonne Norman Budget & Finance Analyst, HR Corporate Services, Essex County Council

Hello Vicky

I'm afraid I will only be able to provide the information for Essex
County Council as Chelmsford Borough Council is a different
organisation. You will have to send your request seperately to them I'm
afraid.

I will send you an official acknowledgement from Essex County Council
shortly.

Yours sincerely

Yvonne Norman
HR Corporate Services
Finance and Budget Analyst

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 436229| extension: 30229 |
email: [email address]

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Dear Yvonne Norman

Thank you for your prompt response. I would also clarify when I mentioned constructive dismissal, I was referring to the employee directly, similar point about bullying and harassment complaints, there is no Employment Tribunal claim called "bullying and harassment". This will usually form part of a claim for unfair dismissal or one (or more) of the various discrimination claim and/or under the Protection from Harassment Act. Could you provide the information on the aforementioned.

Could you provide the information in electronic format via this website.

Thank you for your full co-operation

Yours Sincerely

Vicky Gray

Yvonne Norman Budget & Finance Analyst, HR Corporate Services, Essex County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Vicky

Thank you for your request for information, which was received by Essex
County Council on 4^th December 2008.

We will determine and let you know whether we hold the information you
have requested and consider whether it is exempt from disclosure. Under
certain circumstances we may charge for providing information, but we will
let you know before we do any work that would incur a charge.

Your request is covered by the Freedom of Information act, under which we
must respond within 20 working days.

Please contact me if you would like further advice or assistance about
your request or your right to access information held by Essex County
Council.

Yours sincerely

Yvonne Norman

HR Corporate Services

Finance and Budget Analyst

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 436229| extension: 30229 | email:
[email address]

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Yvonne Norman Budget & Finance Analyst, HR Corporate Services, Essex County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Vicky

I am pleased to include the following information, which I believe
satisfies your request.

I would like to know how many employees of the city council have

been absent from work due to either stress, anxiety, depression or

any combination of those ailments between 1st August 2004 and 31st

October 2008. 2,008

Please also confirm how many complaints of bullying have been made

by employees of the council against managers or colleagues during

the same period. 26 logged complaints between September 2006 and
31^st October 2008. We are not able to give accurate information before
that date as that is when the database system for logging cases came into
operation.

Please confirm how many employees have claimed constructive

dismissal within the same period for bullying/harassment. 1 case

Please confirm how many claims have been filed against the city

council at the Employment Tribunal within the same period for

bullying/harassment. 5 cases.

Please note that the data also includes all unresolved Bullying and
Harassment claims as at 31^st October 2008.

If you are not satisfied with my response to your request, please let me
know. If I am unable to resolve the issue immediately, I will explain our
complaints procedure.

If, after following our complaints procedure, you are still not satisfied,
you are entitled to ask the Information Commissioner to review our
decision. You can contact him at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, Sk9 5AF, telephone 01625 545700.

Please contact me if you would like further advice or assistance about
your request or your right to access information held by Essex County
Council.

Yours sincerely

Yvonne Norman

HR Corporate Services

Finance and Budget Analyst

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 436229| extension: 30229 | email:
[email address]

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Dear Sir or Madam

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Essex County Council's handling of my FOI request 'Bullying and Harassment'.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/bu...
The response provided has no relation to the information I asked for. I didn't ask if they had a system for recording statistical information, I asked for the figures. They have not denied that any complaints were made nor have they cited any exemptions against disclosing the data. The fact that they do not have a system for recording them is meaningless. They have a duty under FOI to confirm or deny if the information is held, then to determine if it is exempt from disclosure and if it is not, they must disclose it.

Yours sincerely

Vicky Gray

Yvonne Norman Budget & Finance Analyst, HR Corporate Services, Essex County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Vicky

Thank you for your request for an internal review, which was received at
Essex County Council on 31^st December 2008.

Your request is now being treated as a complaint and has been passed to
Ellen Hammersley in our Advice and Support team for an answer. A response
will be sent to you within 10 working days from the receipt of your
complaint.

We will determine and let you know whether we hold the information you
have requested and consider whether it is exempt from disclosure. Under
certain circumstances we may charge for providing information, but we will
let you know before we do any work that would incur a charge.

Please contact me if you would like further advice or assistance about
your request or your right to access information held by Essex County
Council.

Yours sincerely

Yvonne Norman

HR Corporate Services

Finance and Budget Analyst

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 436229| extension: 30229 | email:
[email address]

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Margaret Tant Head of Advice and Support, Essex County Council

2 Attachments

Vicky,

Please find the ECC response to your FOI request and a copy of the ECC
charging policy.

Regards

Margaret

Margaret Tant

Head of Advice and Support

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 437007 | extension: 51007 | email:
[email address]

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Dear Vicky

Review of complaint under the Freedom of Information Act

Following your request that your complaint be referred to our internal
review process, I am writing to advise you of the outcome.

The service area (we) have now reviewed your complaint that information
has not been disclosed to you. In your original request for information
which was received by Essex County Council on 4^th December 2008, you
requested:

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

2. Please also confirm how many complaints of bullying have been made
by employees of the council against managers or colleagues during the same
period.

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

4. Please confirm how many claims have been filed against the city
council at the Employment Tribunal within the same period for
bullying/harassment.

With regard to points one, three and four in our response to you on 24^th
December 2008 we believe that the information supplied satisfies these
parts of your request.

With regard to point two, we responded with the following:

§ 26 logged complaints between September 2006 and 31^st October
2008. We are not able to give accurate information before that date as
that is when the database system for logging cases came into operation.

We noted that you had not received a formal response for information
requested between 1^st August 2004 and September 2006.

Therefore, we have reviewed this and provide the following response to
point two of your original request:

§ There have been 26 logged complaints between September 2006 and
31^st October 2008. With regards to information requested between 1^st
August and September 2006, we have calculated that it would cost Essex
County Council (ECC) more than £450 to locate, retrieve and provide the
information that you have requested so I am exercising ECC's right not to
fulfil this part of your request.

This cost has been calculated due to the way in which the information is
held by ECC, as the requested information was not centrally logged before
September 2006. We currently have 7,026 employees whose files would have
to be checked as they worked for ECC prior to September 2006, plus another
1,200 people who started within the period. We would also have to recall
approximately 4,561 files from our off site storage records management
site, as these employees left during the period in question but may still
have grievance data on file. Based on a recent audit that estimated an
individual can look at a maximum of 20 files per hour, it would take over
639 hours to locate, retrieve and provide this information.

With regards to point two, we accept that your request has not been
properly handled under the Freedom of Information Act and we apologise for
this. We hope this response will satisfy your request, but we encourage
you to request an ECC appeals panel if this is not the case.

Please contact Yvonne Norman if you would like further advice or
assistance about your request, our appeals panel process or your right to
access information held by Essex County Council. I have also attached a
copy of our Charging Policy for your information.

However, if you are still not satisfied, you are entitled to ask the
Information Commissioner to review our decision. You can contact him at
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone 01625
545700.

Yours sincerely

.

References

Visible links

Dear Margaret Tant

Thank you for your prompt response. I would point out the following points:

As a council you will have to record sickness absence in a format to send form HR to Payroll in order for SSP to be calculated (even for cases where staff still receive full pay) So there will be some sort or record detailing absence.

As a council one would expect you would employ a welfare officer, who would be advised of all staff absent due to stress or those who had said they were being bullied, it would be part of the 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.

One would assume that a council would have a welfare officer, who would be advised of all staff absent due to stress or those 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. So details would have to be passed to that person or an appointed person in HR. All records of bullying would be kept.

The suggestion that to search through the files over four years is slightly puzzling as one would imagine each file would have a section dealing with sickness absence. If the files are manual files held in what the Data Protection Act refers to as a "Manual relevant structured filing system," one would expect it would take at most a minute to extract a file from a cabinet, open it, turn up the sickness tab and glance at the sheet and scribble a note if the file refers to stress/depression/ and put it back again. The "relevant cost limit" from Section 12 is £450 or two and a half days work. By those figures, one would expect you to be able to review 1000 files in that time. If you ran a query on a database, you could identify all the relevant information I have requested and then look at these files.

I would ask that you remember the statutory duty imposed upon public authorities by virtue of Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act to provide advice and assistance to requesters.

Yours sincerely

Vicky Gray

Margaret Tant Head of Advice and Support, Essex County Council

I am out of the office on Friday 9 January. If you have a query please can
you contact the Advice and Support Team ext 20111. Messages can be left
with Julie Leigh on ext. 20695.

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Margaret Tant Head of Advice and Support, Essex County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Vicky,

Please see ECC response to your recent email.

Regards

Margaret

Margaret Tant

Head of Advice and Support

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 437007 | extension: 51007 | email:
[email address]

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Dear Vicky Gray,

Thank you for your email which was received by Essex County Council on 9
January 2009.

In order to deal with your complaint in the most appropriate and effective
manner please could you confirm that your complaint is regarding how ECC
stores/holds information prior to September 2006 which led to our
application of the £450 cost limit to that part of your request or if
you feel that ECC has not complied with our obligations under the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.

Once we receive your clarification we will be able to deal with and
respond to your complaint through the appropriate channels.

Please contact Yvonne Norman if you would like further advice or
assistance about your request or your right to access information held by
Essex County Council.

Yours sincerely,

Thanks Margaret

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Dear Ms Tant

For the purposes of clarification, I am not requesting a review based upon how you choose to record information, but rather I dispute that the only way to provide me with the data I have asked for is by manually searching through several thousand files.

As I explained “as a council you will have to record sickness absence in a format to send form HR to Payroll in order for SSP to be calculated (even for cases where staff still receive full pay) So there will be some sort or payroll record detailing absence” – Clearly this data will not be held in archived individual staff members’ files.

Additionally, “as a council one would expect you would employ a welfare officer, who would be advised of all staff absent due to stress or those who had said they were being bullied, it would be part of the 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” – This too would indicate a record exists outside of personnel files, unless of course the council ignores it’s duty under the HASAWA.

The point I am making is that I do not accept that the only way to provide the data I have requested is by the method you are suggesting.

Additionally, as I pointed out “I would ask that you remember the statutory duty imposed upon public authorities by virtue of Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act to provide advice and assistance to requesters”.

You have simply refused my request based on cost – you have made no attempt to comply with the statutory duty imposed by Section 16 and suggested any means by which the information or part of the information could be made available.

I hope that this has provided you with the clarification necessary in order for the internal review to be carried out. If not, please let me know what further clarification is required.

Yours sincerely

Vicky Gray

Margaret Tant Head of Advice and Support, Essex County Council

I am out of the office on Friday 16 January. If you have a query please
can you contact the Advice and Support Team ext 20111. Messages can be
left with Julie Leigh on ext. 20695.

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Yvonne Norman Budget & Finance Analyst, HR Corporate Services, Essex County Council

1 Attachment

Dear Vicky

This is to inform you that an independent information appeals panel is
being held on 19^th February 2009 to review the handling of your Freedom
of Information request by Essex County Council. You will be notified of
the outcome.

Your attendance is not required.

Yours sincerely

Yvonne Norman

HR Corporate Services

Finance and Budget Analyst

Essex County Council | telephone: 01245 436229| extension: 30229 | email:
[email address]

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ISIS IS InfoSharing InfoSecurity, Essex County Council

Dear Ms. Gray

Review of refusal to disclose information under the Freedom of Information
Act

Following your request that this matter be referred to our internal
appeals panel, I am writing to advise you of the outcome of their review.

On 19 February 2009, Essex County Council's Information Appeals Panel
(`the Panel') reviewed your request to assess whether Essex County Council
(`ECC') had dealt with your request in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act; including the application of Section 12: exemption where
cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit and the advice and
assistance ECC provided to you as the requester, as detailed in Section
16: advice and assistance.

The Panel considered that the information relating to "Statistics of how
many complaints of bullying have been made by employees of the council
against managers or colleagues between 1^st August 2004 and September
2006" would indeed take over 18 hours for ECC to locate, retrieve and
provide this information to you. Therefore, the Panel upheld the decision
to exercise ECC's right not to fulfil your request.

The factors considered by the Panel before reaching this decision were:

. The cost to ECC to locate, retrieve and provide this information;

. Any alternatives available to ECC to provide some of this
information so that it would fall within the cost ceiling.

The Panel decided that, in this case, as the information requested is not
in a readily retrievable format, it was not possible to obtain the
requested information within the cost ceiling as the only option to ECC
would be to search through thousands of personal files to manually
retrieve this information.

The Panel also considered the advice and assistance provided by ECC to
you, as the requester, and felt that ECC had provided appropriate advice
and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect ECC to do so.

The factors considered by the Panel before reaching this decision were:

. The level of advice from ECC to you, as the requester, in keeping
you advised of the progress of your request for information;

. ECC's advice to you with regards to your rights under the Freedom
of Information Act;

. ECC's assistance to you, as the requester, in focusing your
request or, where this is not possible, providing information which would
fall within the cost ceiling.

The Panel did acknowledge that in ECC's first refusal notice that ECC
failed to cite a valid exemption under that act, for which the Panel
wishes to apologise; however they agreed that ECC's reasons were laid out
in ECC's later response where the initial response was reviewed as part of
ECC's internal complaints procedure.

Following your latest correspondence to ECC, clarifying the nature of your
complaint, the Panel acknowledged that there were some new questions
raised surrounding ECC's ability to provide this information, for which
the Panel would like to address and provide some further clarification.

o ECC's obligations regarding the collection of sickness absence (to
identify information requested between 1^st August 2004 and September
2006); whilst ECC does collect easily retrievable information
regarding sickness absence on a computerised system, this information
is recorded and held using categories advised by the employers
organisation. However, these categories do not include bullying as a
discrete category within in its own right. Bullying and Harassment
information was not centrally logged until September 2006 which
explains why detailed bullying information can only be obtained from
the personal files via a manual trawl.
o ECC's obligations to provide a welfare officer; ECC currently fulfills
this obligation by providing an occupational health service for its
employees which includes a confidential self referral service. ECC
also provides a staff counselling service. The occupational health
service does provide reports but the categories are fairly broad.
Bullying cases would probably fall within the stress category. Of
course stress cases could include a number of work related or indeed
personal home events. The only way to specifically extract bullying
cases would be via a manual search. I can, however, confirm that
information from our occupational health service was included in our
statistics which have already been provided to you for complaints of
bullying between September 2006 and 31 October 2008.

This is the final stage of our internal complaints procedure. The Panel
hopes that your request is satisfied and you understand and accept its
decision. However, if you are still not satisfied, you are entitled to
ask the Information Commissioner to review its decision. You can contact
him at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545700.

Yours sincerely,

James Boylett
Information Sharing Information Security (ISIS) Compliance Manager

Information Services and Programmes

Please reply to James Boylett

Telephone: 01245 431851

Internet: www.essex.gov.uk

Email: [email address]

EssexWorks

For a better quality of life

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Dear James Boylett

You stated that "Bullying and Harassment information was not centrally logged until September 2006 which explains why detailed bullying information can only be obtained from the personal files via a manual trawl." If an employee complains about a manger bullying them, they in effect have dealt with the bullying themselves, prior to September 2006? Is this not a slight conflict of interest? The victim complains about the manager and the manger investigates themselves...no wonder you can't look through those figures.....As know doubt it would take a manger who was incompetent and trying to cover up his bullying behaviour "an hour to look through 20 files" as you so eloquently stated. When it would take the average person at most a minute to extract a file from a cabinet, open it, turn up the sickness tab and glance at the sheet and scribble a note if the file refers to Bullying/Grievances/Harassment and put it back again. The "relevant cost limit" from Section 12 is £450 or two and a half days work. By those figures, one would expect you to be able to review 1000 files in that time. If you ran a query on your database, you could identify all employees who had submitted Grievances/Bullying/ Harassment in the period I have requested and then look at these files.

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.

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

The principles of Freedom of Information do not extend to councils choosing to cover up the wholly unacceptable behaviour of their employees who choose to bully others and make their lives a misery whilst the senior executives in the authority bury their heads in the sand and pretend it isn’t happening – most likely
because they are themselves bullies.

Thank you for the information you have supplied. I will not waste any more of my valuable time by complaining to the Information Commissioner from whose office you have no doubt been advised how best to refuse to comply.

Yours sincerely

Vicky Gray