List of employees

The request was partially successful.

Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear Leybourne Parish Council,

Please could I have a list of your employees along with their job titles, contracted hours and annual salary?

Yours faithfully,

Ganesh Sittampalam

Neil Curtis, Leybourne Parish Council

1 Attachment

Dear Ganesh,

 

I am afraid that the information you request constitutes personal data for
the purposes of the Data Protection Act. As such it is information exempt
under Sec 40 (2) of the Freedom of information Act and I cannot divulge
that information to you.

 

In reaching this decision I have considered the example in section 4, Page
4 of the attached ICO guide. The example exactly mirrors the staffing
framework of this Council.

 

 

Kind regards

 

Neil Curtis MILCM

 

Chief Executive

Leybourne Parish Council

Leybourne Village Hall

Little Market Row

Leybourne

West Malling

Kent  ME19 5QL

01732 873722

 

Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear Leybourne Parish Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Leybourne Parish Council's handling of my FOI request 'List of employees'.

Although the information may be personal data, that does not mean disclosure would automatically be prohibited: one of the conditions in s40(3) must be satisifed. You may wish to consult the ICO's guidance at https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

Additionally even if some of the information I have requested is exempt you are obliged to release the rest.

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

Yours faithfully,

Ganesh Sittampalam

Neil Curtis, Leybourne Parish Council

Dear Ganesh,

I am satisfied your request as submitted cannot be complied with. The combination of information is personal data and its disclosure would fail the fairness Data Protection principle. Indeed should you wish to consult the document forwarded to you earlier you will see that the situation is clearly covered as previously explained.

Should you wish to re-word your request taking into account the guidance forwarded already then it may be possible to release some of the information requested. However as the request stands with only one post holder in each post to disclose names, job titles, annual salaries and contracted hours would inevitable breach Data Protection principles.

Should you amend your request to only require a list of job titles then they could be disclosed as could the number of staff paid over a certain amount annually or the number of staff paid between an upper and lower limit. However the combined disclosure of names, salaries and contracted hours would breach the Data Protection Principle of fairness.

If you still wish your original request to stand I will of course arrange for an internal review of the decision not to disclose.

Please let me know how you wish to proceed.

Kind regards

Neil Curtis MILCM

Chief Executive
Leybourne Parish Council
Leybourne Village Hall
Little Market Row
Leybourne
West Malling
Kent ME19 5QL
01732 873722

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Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear Neil,

Thank you for your email. I confirm I'd like the internal review to proceed.

I'd encourage you or the reviewer to consult either the ICO guidance I already linked to or perhaps contact the ICO directly for advice. I think you are misunderstanding both the application of the s40 exemption and also the appropriate way to proceed when you believe only some information is exempt.

For example if you do consider you could release the list of job titles in response to a request that asked for them alone, you should do so in response to my request even if you are refusing the rest under s40.

Regards,

Ganesh

Neil Curtis, Leybourne Parish Council

Hi Ganesh

Thanks for the below. I appreciate you pointing out my error. As you probably appreciate this Parish Council is on a steep learning curve regards FOI.

The Job titles used by the Parish Council:

Chief Executive/Clerk/Responsible Financial Officer/ Responsible Officer.
Site Manager
Assistant Site Manager
Site Officer
Bar Manager
Bar Assistant

With regards the other details requested I will arrange for an internal review of my decision and you will be notified of the result in due course. As the next Council meeting is not scheduled until 6 October it is unlikely that they will be unable to nominate a reviewer before that date. I would therefore be grateful if you would accept a deadline for notifying you of the internal review date of 13 October 2015

Kind regards

Neil Curtis MILCM

Chief Executive
Leybourne Parish Council
Leybourne Village Hall
Little Market Row
Leybourne
West Malling
Kent ME19 5QL
01732 873722

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Dear Neil,

Thanks for your reply. The date you propose is fine for the review.

I would make a couple of observations:

- I can't see how you can sustain exempting what is presumably your own name under s40 for the Chief Executive/Clerk position: it's already in the public domain, e.g. on the council's website. I'm happy for the names of the other post holders to be withheld if they aren't already public.

- As far as salaries go it's likely you'd be expected to provide a range or band into which they fall, rather than an exact figure. See sections 38-48 of the ICO guidance I linked to previously - I'd be happy with any of the approaches suggested there, such as the advertised salary range/pay scale for the job, or £5K bands, or anything else which gives an approximate idea without revealing exact details.

Regards,

Ganesh

Neil Curtis, Leybourne Parish Council

Hi Ganesh,

Thanks for the guidance and helpful approach.

I see what you mean about by name and job title. To refuse to disclose them whilst they are available via the website and then also sign off the email refusing those details with those exact details is not the best demonstration of my professional skills!!

Can you clarify for me then would my name and job title not be covered by Sec 21 (1)?

I'll work something out on the salary bands and get that to you sometime next week.

If I haven't sent it over by Thursday please drop me a gentle email reminder.

Kind regards

Neil Curtis MILCM

Chief Executive
Leybourne Parish Council
Leybourne Village Hall
Little Market Row
Leybourne
West Malling
Kent ME19 5QL
01732 873722

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J Marley left an annotation ()

Neil - from a parish of population around 3,500, you have a job title of Chief Executive (instead of Clerk) and say you are a Member of the Institute of Local Council Management ... all designed to impress and indicate you are a qualified clerk . Yet you are asking the FOI requester how to answer their query.... which does not impress. The WhatdoThey Know website publishes the exchange of emails between you for the universe to see. What is wrong with asking the ICO - after all, they are the experts :))

Neil Curtis, Leybourne Parish Council

Hi Ganesh,

 

Please find below details of the pay bands in £5000 increments along with
the number of staff posts within that band.

 

Pay Band £0 - £4999 pa  - 3 Posts

Pay Band £5000 - £9999 – 1 Post

Pay Band £10000 - £14999  - 1 Post

Pay Band £15000 - £19999 – 0 Post

Pay Band £20000 – £24999 – 1 Post

Pay Band £25000 and over - 0 Post

 

Kind regards

 

Neil Curtis MILCM

 

Chief Executive

Leybourne Parish Council

Leybourne Village Hall

Little Market Row

Leybourne

West Malling

Kent  ME19 5QL

01732 873722

 

Dear Neil,

Thanks very much for your reply.

With your name/job title I was trying to make certain I hadn't misunderstood that it was you, but as you've confirmed that now I don't think there's any need to discuss that further - either you've released the information or you could exempt it under s21 as you suggest, but either way I've got it now.

Thanks also for the list of salary bands.

I think what I'm missing now is a list of which salary band corresponds to which job title, and also the contracted hours for each job title.

Regards,

Ganesh

Ganesh Sittampalam

Dear Neil,

Could you update me on whether you've managed to organise an internal review yet?

Regards,

Ganesh

Neil Curtis, Leybourne Parish Council

Hi Ganesh,

Two Councillors are carrying out the review at the moment. I would expect a result by the end of the week.

Kind regards

Neil Curtis MILCM

Chief Executive
Leybourne Parish Council
Leybourne Village Hall
Little Market Row
Leybourne
West Malling
Kent ME19 5QL
01732 873722

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Neil Curtis, Leybourne Parish Council

Hi Ganesh.

The internal review has been carried out by two Councillors.

They have upheld my decision that given the limited number of staff and limited number of posts to release any further data would be unfair to those concerned. Any further release of data would obviously relate to a particular individual or enable a particular individual to be associated with it.

Should you need any further assistance please let me know

Kind regards

Neil Curtis MILCM

Chief Executive
Leybourne Parish Council
Leybourne Village Hall
Little Market Row
Leybourne
West Malling
Kent ME19 5QL
01732 873722

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