Cost of Employees off work due to sickness
Dear Oxford City Council,
1. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for Oxford City Council employees off work due to sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
2. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for Oxford Direct Services employees off work due to sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
Yours faithfully,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Ms Dabrowski
Oxford City Council – Reference: 11090
Thank you for your email.
Your request was received on 8th May 2022 and ideally you will be sent a response within 20 working days (of receipt) in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000/ Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), subject to the information not being exempt or containing reference to a third party.
Due to an unprecedented volume of Freedom of Information Requests currently, it is likely that some requests may go beyond the 20 working days, we are working as hard as possible to respond in a timely manner, but we feel it is better to keep requestors informed in advance.
Yours sincerely
Sal Bartlett | Information Governance Administrator| Law & Governance | SA1.2B | Oxford City Council | St Aldates Chambers | St Aldates | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
For any Data Protection queries please send the email directly to the [email address] mailbox
Dear Ms Dabrowski,
I am writing to you regarding your Freedom of Information Request number 11090.
Unfortunately the response to your request has been delayed, I wish to apologise for this delay. Please be advised that we actively working on the response to your request, and will provide you with a response as soon as possible.
Sal Bartlett | Information Governance Administrator| Law & Governance | SA1.2B | Oxford City Council | St Aldates Chambers | St Aldates | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
For any Data Protection queries please send the email directly to the [email address] mailbox
Dear Oxford City Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Cost of Employees off work due to sickness'.
It has now been in excess of two months since the FOI request was submitted. You are obliged to respond within 20 working days. Please provide a response within the next 10 working days.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Ms Dabrowski
Oxford City Council – Reference: 11090
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to your
Freedom of Information Act 2000 request. Further to the acknowledgement
below, I can respond to your request received on 8th May 2022 as follows:
Request
1. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost
(including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for
Oxford City Council employees off work due to sickness. Please also
express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each
corresponding financial year.
2. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost
(including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for
Oxford Direct Services employees off work due to sickness. Please also
express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each
corresponding financial year.
Response
1. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the
total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance
contributions) for Oxford City Council employees off work due to
sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total
salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
Data for Oxford City Council is set out below. We are unable to calculate
the exact cost of sickness absence due to the amount of time it would take
to review individual records and have instead provided an estimate based
on the median average salary for each year.
2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
Estimated cost of sickness £715,455 £876,042 £586,617 £836,015
Sickness cost as %age of total pay
bill 2.4 2.9 1.9 2.6
2. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the
total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance
contributions) for Oxford Direct Services employees off work due to
sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total
salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
Financial Year Total sickness £ Total staff costs Total staff costs
£ %
2018-19 1,216,103.30 29,354,393.64 4.10%
2019-20 1,392,127.55 29,326,025.55 4.70%
2020-21 813,118.88 27,428,048.73 3.00%
2021-22 1,137,943.42 28,396,978.91 4.00%
Please note that Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services may have
different methods or sources of information to calculate their respective
costs.
If you disagree with any part of the response to your request you are
entitled to ask the Council for an internal review of the decision(s)
made. You may do this by writing to the Monitoring Officer, by either
email – [1][email address] – or by post to Monitoring Officer, Oxford
City Council, St Aldate’s Chambers, St Aldate’s, Oxford, OX1 1DS. After
the result of the internal review, if you remain dissatisfied, you may ask
the Information Commissioner to intervene on your behalf. You may do this
by writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Team | Law and Governance | SAC 3.8 | Oxford City
Council | St Aldates Chambers | 109-113 St. Aldate's | Oxford | OX1 1DS
Website: [2]www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter:
[3]www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook:
[4]www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
References
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1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
3. http://www.twitter.com/OxfordCity
4. http://www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
Dear Oxford City Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Cost of Employees off work due to sickness'.
I do not understand as to why you have had to resort to estimates for the cost of sick absence for Oxford City Council? Surely the HR Manager would require this information at the end of every tax year?
Can you explain as to why the sick absence rate at Oxford Direct Services is almost double that of Oxford City Council?
You wrote "Please note that Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services may have different methods or sources of information to calculate their respective costs." This comment is nonsense. I have asked for absolute numbers and information. It should not matter as to how they are calculated as there is only one correct answer.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Ms Dabrowski
Oxford City Council – Reference: 11090
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to your
Freedom of Information Act 2000 request. Further to the acknowledgement
below, I can respond to your request received on 8th May 2022 as follows:
Request
1. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost
(including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for
Oxford City Council employees off work due to sickness. Please also
express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each
corresponding financial year.
2. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost
(including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for
Oxford Direct Services employees off work due to sickness. Please also
express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each
corresponding financial year.
Response
1. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the
total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance
contributions) for Oxford City Council employees off work due to
sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total
salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
Data for Oxford City Council is set out below. We are unable to calculate
the exact cost of sickness absence due to the amount of time it would take
to review individual records and have instead provided an estimate based
on the median average salary for each year.
2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
Estimated cost of sickness £715,455 £876,042 £586,617 £836,015
Sickness cost as %age of total pay
bill 2.4 2.9 1.9 2.6
2. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the
total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance
contributions) for Oxford Direct Services employees off work due to
sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total
salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
Financial Year Total sickness £ Total staff costs Total staff costs
£ %
2018-19 1,216,103.30 29,354,393.64 4.10%
2019-20 1,392,127.55 29,326,025.55 4.70%
2020-21 813,118.88 27,428,048.73 3.00%
2021-22 1,137,943.42 28,396,978.91 4.00%
Please note that Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services may have
different methods or sources of information to calculate their respective
costs.
If you disagree with any part of the response to your request you are
entitled to ask the Council for an internal review of the decision(s)
made. You may do this by writing to the Monitoring Officer, by either
email – [1][email address] – or by post to Monitoring Officer, Oxford
City Council, St Aldate’s Chambers, St Aldate’s, Oxford, OX1 1DS. After
the result of the internal review, if you remain dissatisfied, you may ask
the Information Commissioner to intervene on your behalf. You may do this
by writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Team | Law and Governance | SAC 3.8 | Oxford City
Council | St Aldates Chambers | 109-113 St. Aldate's | Oxford | OX1 1DS
Website: [2]www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter:
[3]www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook:
[4]www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
3. http://www.twitter.com/OxfordCity
4. http://www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
My apologies, I’ve just noticed a colleague had already replied to your
FOI.
From: freedomofinformation
Sent: 21 July 2022 16:23
To: '[FOI #859863 email]'
Subject: RE: Freedom of Information request - Cost of Employees off work
due to sickness - 11090
Dear Ms Dabrowski
Oxford City Council – Reference: 11090
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to your
Freedom of Information Act 2000 request. Further to the acknowledgement
below, I can respond to your request received on 8th May 2022 as follows:
Request
1. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost
(including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for
Oxford City Council employees off work due to sickness. Please also
express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each
corresponding financial year.
2. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the total cost
(including salary, pension and national insurance contributions) for
Oxford Direct Services employees off work due to sickness. Please also
express this value as a percentage of the total salary costs for each
corresponding financial year.
Response
1. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the
total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance
contributions) for Oxford City Council employees off work due to
sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total
salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
Data for Oxford City Council is set out below. We are unable to calculate
the exact cost of sickness absence due to the amount of time it would take
to review individual records and have instead provided an estimate based
on the median average salary for each year.
2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
Estimated cost of sickness £715,455 £876,042 £586,617 £836,015
Sickness cost as %age of total pay
bill 2.4 2.9 1.9 2.6
2. For each financial year from 2018 to 2022 please provide the
total cost (including salary, pension and national insurance
contributions) for Oxford Direct Services employees off work due to
sickness. Please also express this value as a percentage of the total
salary costs for each corresponding financial year.
Financial Year Total sickness £ Total staff costs Total staff costs
£ %
2018-19 1,216,103.30 29,354,393.64 4.10%
2019-20 1,392,127.55 29,326,025.55 4.70%
2020-21 813,118.88 27,428,048.73 3.00%
2021-22 1,137,943.42 28,396,978.91 4.00%
Please note that Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services may have
different methods or sources of information to calculate their respective
costs.
If you disagree with any part of the response to your request you are
entitled to ask the Council for an internal review of the decision(s)
made. You may do this by writing to the Monitoring Officer, by either
email – [1][email address] – or by post to Monitoring Officer, Oxford
City Council, St Aldate’s Chambers, St Aldate’s, Oxford, OX1 1DS. After
the result of the internal review, if you remain dissatisfied, you may ask
the Information Commissioner to intervene on your behalf. You may do this
by writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Team | Law and Governance | SAC 3.8 | Oxford City
Council | St Aldates Chambers | 109-113 St. Aldate's | Oxford | OX1 1DS
Website: [2]www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter:
[3]www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook:
[4]www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
3. http://www.twitter.com/OxfordCity
4. http://www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
Dear Oxford City Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Cost of Employees off work due to sickness'.
I have not received a response to my comments posted on 18 July 2022.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Oxford City Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Cost of Employees off work due to sickness'.
I have not yet received a response to internal review submitted on 18 July 2022. It has been in excess of 20 working days since internal review was submitted,
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Lena Dabrowski
Oxford City Council Freedom of Information – Reference: 11090
Please accept our sincere apologies for the delay in providing a response to your email below, received on 19 July 22. We identified that you are still waiting for a response to your internal review request following an audit of our outstanding cases. Our response is attached.
Yours sincerely
Information Governance Officer
Freedom of Information Team | Law and Governance | Oxford City Council | Town Hall | St Aldate’s | Oxford | OX1 1BX
Website: www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
Dear Oxford City Council,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Cost of Employees off work due to sickness'.
I still don't understand why it is only possible to provide an estimate of sickness costs?
There is NO need to investigate sickness cost for individuals. I did not ask for sickness cost of individuals. I am interested in TOTAL cost of sickness.
You said that i-trent automatically processes any sick pay due. It should therefore be possible to extract sickness pay for any desired reporting period. This can be done very quickly by someone vaguely competent with the use of the i-trent software. If absolutely necessary, I suggest you contact MHR, the software developers of i-trent, and request help in this basic task.
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
Yours faithfully,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Lena Dabrowski
Freedom of Information Request, Oxford City Council – Reference: 11090
Thank you for your email which we received on 26 June 2023 regarding our internal review response to your Freedom of Information request regarding staff sickness.
As set out in our response of 22 June 2023, Oxford City Council can only provide estimate total sickness costs within the time limits of 18.5 hours under exemption s12 of the Freedom of Information Act. To provide absolute total sickness costs would require calculating and collating costs from each sickness absence and we set out in our response how this would exceed the time limit.
This concludes my Internal Review of your Freedom of Information case. If you remain dissatisfied, you may ask the Information Commissioner to intervene on your behalf. You can do this by writing to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely
Information Governance Officer
Freedom of Information Team | Law & Governance | Oxford City Council | Town Hall | St Aldate’s | Oxford | OX1 1BX |
Website: www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
Dear Freedom Of Information,
I find it extraordinary that Human Resources (or whatever name OCC uses) does not have this information at its fingertips. I also believe someone who is competent with the i-trent software should be able to extract and collate the required information in the allotted time. I have therefore referred this FOI request as a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Yours sincerely,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Lena Dabrowski
Oxford City Council Freedom of Information – Reference: 11090
Information Commissioner reference: IC-246651-K3P0
Please find attached a further response to your internal review request received on 26 June 2023.
Yours sincerely
Information Governance Officer
Freedom of Information Team | Law and Governance | Oxford City Council | Town Hall | St Aldate’s | Oxford | OX1 1BX
Website: www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
Dear Freedom Of Information,
Please provide actual figures (not estimates) for the months December and November 2022
Yours sincerely,
Lena Dabrowski
Dear Lena Dabrowski
Freedom of Information Request, Oxford City Council - Reference:
FOI2023/00433
Thank you for your email which we are treating as a new request as it is
asking for refined information. Your request was received on 15 October
2023 and you will be sent a response by 10th November in accordance with
the Freedom of Information Act 2000/ Environmental Information Regulations
2004 (EIR), subject to the information not being exempt or containing
reference to a third party.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Team | Law and Governance | Oxford City Council |
Town Hall | St Aldate's | Oxford | OX1 1BX
Website: [1]www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter:
[2]www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook:
[3]www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
References
Visible links
1. http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
2. http://www.twitter.com/OxfordCity
3. http://www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
Dear Lena Dabrowski
Please find attached a response to your request for information received
on 15 October 2023.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Team | Law and Governance | Oxford City Council |
Town Hall | St Aldate's | Oxford | OX1 1BX
Website: [1]www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter:
[2]www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook:
[3]www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
References
Visible links
1. http://www.oxford.gov.uk/
2. http://www.twitter.com/OxfordCity
3. http://www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil
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