Employment Disputes Data

The request was refused by Imperial College London.

Dear Imperial College London,

1. How many employment disputes was Imperial College London involved in the following calendar periods.

Jan.16 – Jan.17
Jan.17 - Jan.18
Jan.18 - Jan.19
Jan.19 - Jan.20
Jan.20-Jan.21

2. For each of the dates how many tribunal proceedings were initiated against Imperial College or its employees?

3. For each of the date ranges set out please provide:
a) the total number of settlement agreements executed.
b) the total value (G.B.P) of settlement agreements reached.
c) the number of disputes where Imperial College London has refused the opportunity to negotiate a settlement when one has been proposed by either a Claimant involved in proceedings against the College or an employee.

4. For each of the dates in 1 what is the total cost of expenditure on legal advice?
Please specify:
a) monies paid to employment solicitors (alongside the firm paid).
b) monies paid either directly or indirectly on Barrister’s fees.

6. How does Imperial College London fund its expenditure on employment law advice?

7. For each of the periods set out in 1 please specify the income that Imperial College London receives from central government, either directly or indirectly i.e. indirectly or directly received as a result of public taxation.

Yours faithfully,

cMilnes

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Ms Milnes,

 

We are writing to you further to our duty, contained at Section 16 of the
Freedom of Information Act, to provide advice and assistance to requesters
and to seek clarification from you.

 

Could you please clarify what you mean by "employment disputes" in your
first question?

 

In your second question, we presume you are referring to Employment
Tribunal cases, could you please confirm? If so, ET cases would be against
the College, not individual employees as the College is the employer.

 

Regarding your third question, we presume you are referring to settlement
agreements with members of staff, could you please confirm? Please note
that it is very unlikely that we would be in a position to answer
sub-question 3(c) without reviewing individual cases, which would mean it
would be likely to take more than 18 hours to  respond to your request.
Organisations can refuse requests where it would take more than 18 hours
to gather the information requested.

 

Regarding question 6, that is a question rather than a request to access
recorded information. Also, it is not clear what you mean. Perhaps you
could clarify?

 

In response to your 7th question, information about the College's income
is available from the [1]College's Annual reports.

 

You may wish to consider revising your request in light of the information
provided above. Please also provide the necessary clarification.

 

Yours,

 

Freedom of Information Team

Imperial College London 

 

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Dear IMPFOI,

Thankyou for the rapid response.

1. Definition: “ a complaint, argument, or disagreement between employees and their employer or between two or more employees”.

In this instance it would take the form of informal and formal grievances. If this is not possible please provide the formal grievance submissions.

2. Tribunal proceedings would not necessarily be solely against the College, it is incorrect for the College to assert this. Proceedings can be brought against an individual in addition to an organisation (this is not typical, for financial reasons). Hopefully this clarifies.

3. You are correct. I am referring to settlement agreements.

4. In relation to point 3C. If legal proceedings and support is funded by legal insurance the College may have this information more easily accessible since settlement agreements/refusal of offers to settle may need reporting to an insurer for it to remain valid? The College’s stance regarding timing is noted.

5. In relation to point 6. As I understand it Imperial College, London is predominantly funded via central government as opposed to independently earned income on a commercial basis.
The question is, therefore, how does the College currently fund its expenditure on employment legal fees? An example would be legal insurance.

If it is not funded via legal insurance where does the funding come from?

Thank you for your time, this is appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

cMilnes

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Ms Milnes,

 

We shall record your request as follows:

 

For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (to 16 November):

 

 1. How many  informal and formal grievances were raised?

 

 2. How many Employment Tribunal cases were initiated against Imperial
College or its employees?

 

 3. The total number of settlement agreements executed.

 

 4. The total value of settlement agreements reached.

 

 5. The number of disputes where Imperial College London has refused the
opportunity to negotiate a settlement when one has been proposed by
either a Claimant involved in proceedings against the College or an
employee.

 

 6. The total cost of expenditure on legal advice.

 

 7. Monies paid to employment law solicitors.

 

 8. The name of employment law solicitors.

 

 9. Monies paid either directly or indirectly on Barrister’s fees.

 

10. How does Imperial College London fund its expenditure on employment
legal fees, for example through insurance?

 

We shall respond to your request by 15 December.

 

 

Yours,

 

Freedom of Information Team

Imperial College London 

 

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Dear IMPFOI,
Thankyou.

In respect of monies paid to law firms please state the amount paid to each firm in each year.

E.g.. £x to Y

Yours sincerely,

cMilnes

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Ms Milnes,

You have submitted two Freedom of Information Act requests relating to
employment disputes and Employment Tribunals. We are responding to both
requests which were as follows:

Request 1, received 16 November, due 15 December

For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (to 16 November):

1. How many informal and formal grievances were raised? You have defined
this as follows: a complaint, argument, or disagreement between employees
and their employer or between two or more employees. In this instance it
would take the form of informal and formal grievances. If this is not
possible please provide the formal grievance submissions.

 

2. How many Employment Tribunal cases were initiated against Imperial
College or its employees?

3. The total number of settlement agreements executed.

4. The total value of settlement agreements reached.

5. The number of disputes where Imperial College London has refused the
opportunity to negotiate a settlement when one has been proposed by either
a Claimant involved in proceedings against the College or an employee.

6. The total cost of expenditure on legal advice.

7. Monies paid to employment law solicitors. In respect of monies paid to
law firms please state the amount paid to each firm in each year.

8. The name of employment law solicitors.

9. Monies paid either directly or indirectly on Barrister’s fees.

10. How does Imperial College London fund its expenditure on employment
legal fees, for example through insurance?

Request 2, received 12 December, due 5 January

Total legal expenditure to date on tribunal cases 2201868/2019 and
2204479/2019 against Imperial College London.

 

Please provide the total spend broken down to show spend on solicitor fees
and barrister fees.

 

Imperial College is refusing to provide the information requested in
reliance on Section 14 of the Freedom of Information Act which provides
that organisations may reject requests that are vexatious. The courts have
determined that an FOI request can be regarded as vexatious if it is an
inappropriate or improper use of the right to access information created
by the Freedom of Information Act. A right that was created in order to
enable scrutiny of public authorities in the public interest. Public
authorities are entitled to consider whether the request has a value or
serious purpose in terms of the objective public interest in the
information sought and to weigh that against the burden that would be
placed on the organisation by having to produce the information
requested. 

You have asked for a considerable amount of information spanning a period
of almost 5 years. Collating the information requested would be
time-consuming and would place a significant burden on the College in that
staff members would have to be diverted from the function that they are
employed to deliver to generate information that the College has no
business need to create for its own purposes. The request seems related to
the settlement negotiations in your own dispute with the College, rather
than to any genuine and objective public interest in the information
sought and is thus in our view an improper use of the Freedom of
Information Act. 

If you are unhappy with the way that we have handled your request, you can
ask us to conduct a review. Please make your representation in writing
within 40 days of the date you received this response. If you remain
dissatisfied with how Imperial College has handled your request, you may
then approach the [1]Information Commissioner’s Office.   

 

Yours,

 

Freedom of Information Team

[2]Imperial College London 

 

 

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Dear IMPFOI,

Thank you for your response.

Imperial College London featured (alongside others) in Times Higher Education Article (May 2014) entitled "“Employment Disputes Cost Sector £19M over Four Years”.

The article included a table of statistics including "disputes, tribunals, settlements and legal fees".
This information appears to have been delivered up to the Times Higher Education by Imperial College London.

The statistics are substantially the same as my requests at points 1-4 and 6. Why is Imperial College, London unable to supply me with this information?

The fact this material appeared in the Times Higher would suggest it is certainly in the public interest. Imperial College London is a public sector organisation, spending public money, and as such should be open to scrutiny and held accountable for its spending decisions at all levels of the organisation.

I believe that Imperial College London has incorrectly sought to invoke S.14 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and, as suggested, I will take this forward with the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely,

cMilnes

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Ms Milnes,

Thank you for your email. As stated in our response to your Freedom of Information Act requests, if you are unhappy with our response, you can ask us to conduct an Internal Review. If you remain unhappy, you may then complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Can you please confirm whether you wish us to conduct an Internal Review? If you do, please clarify because your comments below relate to only to your questions 1-4 and 6. However, your requests included 12 questions. Do you now wish to revise your requests to only those questions? In which case, we would have to treat that as a new request because it would be substantially different from your original request. If you wish us to conduct an Internal Review of our response to the 12 questions included in your requests, do you wish to make any comments about the other parts of your requests?

Yours,

Anita Hunt
Access to Information Manager
Central Secretariat
Imperial College London  I South Kensington Campus I Faculty Building Level 4 I London SW7 2AZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 5107

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Dear IMPFOI,

Since you have provided substantially the same information previously I can see no reason to attempt to invoke S.14 of the FOIA to justify not responding.

Why is Imperial College London expressly refusing to provide me with the information requested?

As you know a request can be partially answered. The original request was clearly set out and would have facilitated a partial response.

Yours sincerely,

cMilnes

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Ms Milnes,

We explained in our response to your request (our ref. IMPFOI-20-572, response dated 15-12-20) why we regarded the request as vexatious and we advised that could ask for an internal review if unhappy with the response, within 40 days of the response. You replied on 8 January 2021 stating that you would complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. We then sought clarification on whether or not you wanted us to conduct a review and to which aspects of your request the points you had made related (email to you on 8 January 21).

You did not reply until 21 April. You did not provide the confirmation requested, but you are now out of time to request an Internal Review.

You refer in your email below to the possibility of providing a partial response. At this stage, you have the option of submitting a revised request. If you submit a revised and less burdensome request, the College may be able to provide the information requested.

You also have the option of complaining to the Information Commissioner’s Office, but they would not normally look at a complaint about an FOI response if the requester had not followed the Internal Review process.

Yours,

Freedom of Information Team
Imperial College London 

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Dear IMPFOI,

I have objectively demonstrated that Imperial College London has supplied similar data previously to The Times Higher Education Supplement.

Imperial College has confirmed the reason for not responding to a FOI request is because of who the entity is asking the question (below).

I do not believe this is lawful and it is certainly, in my opinion disreputable and should give cause for considerable alarm for a publicly funded organisation to openly be behaving in this fashion.

"The request seems related to the settlement negotiations in your own dispute with the College, rather
than to any genuine and objective public interest in the information sought and is thus in our view an improper use of the Freedom of Information Act".

Yours sincerely,

cMilnes

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Ms Milnes,

Thank you for your further email.

You are out of time to request an Internal Review of the College's handling of your FOI request. You were given that opportunity, but did not provide the clarification or confirmation requested within 40 days.

The identity/motivations of the requester are relevant when assessing whether a request is vexatious. Further information about the application of the Freedom of Information Act can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office's website.

If you wish to submit a revised, less burdensome request, the College will consider that request and may be able to provide the information requested.

Yours,

Anita Hunt
Access to Information Manager
Central Secretariat
Imperial College London  I South Kensington Campus I Faculty Building Level 4 I London SW7 2AZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 5107

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