Employment Conditions 2021

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Dear Emmanuel College, Cambridge,

I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for information relating to your employment practices. I would like to know the following:
1. As of February 26th 2021, the exact lowest hourly wage (excluding benefits) paid by the college to workers (employees or casual workers), over the age of 18, who are not trainees or apprentices, not including holiday pay.
2. As of February 26th 2021, the number of workers (employees or casual workers), if any, in the college in non-academic/administrative positions who are over the age of 18 and paid below £9.50 per hour.
3. As of February 26th 2021, the percentage of workers (employees or casual workers) in the college in non-academic/administrative positions who are over the age of 18 and paid below £9.50 per hour.
4. The name(s) of any external employment agencies used to provide staff in the two years prior to January 2021.
5. If the college uses any external employment agencies to provide staff, the number of contracted staff who worked 2 or more hours a day, in any day of the week, for 12 or more consecutive weeks, in the year prior to February 1st 2020.
6. If the college uses any external employment agencies to provide staff, the number of contracted staff who worked 2 or more hours a day, in any day of the week, for 12 or more consecutive weeks, in the year prior to February 1st 2020, who were paid below £9.50 per hour.
7. The total number of staff who earned over £50,000 in the most recent financial year
8. The total number of staff who earned over £80,000 in the most recent financial year.
If you are to invoke Section 43 to withhold information in relation to any of these questions please note you must provide details of the exact FOIA exemption, details of who would be prejudiced by this information, and a public interest test justifying a conclusion with arguments for and against the release of the information.
If you are to invoke Section 12 to withhold information in relation to any of these questions please provide details of how locating, retrieving and extracting this information would exceed the appropriate limit of £450 as set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. Please also be aware of your duty under section 16 (1) of the Act to advise and assist me in narrowing my request to bring it within the appropriate limit.

In its guidance the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said that the requirement to respond 'promptly' and the requirement to respond no later than 20 working days were to be considered as separate obligations. Public bodies should be able to justify why it took them as long as 20 days to respond to requests in cases where they do not act more promptly than that "long stop" deadline. I look forward to receiving your response in the next 20 working days. If you are unable to provide a response in the next 20 working days please provide an updated timeline by the deadline 26th March 2021

Thank you very much for your assistance with this request. If you would like any clarification on the information I have asked for, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Please confirm you have received this email, provide the reference number of the request, and give the date you will respond on or before.

Yours faithfully,

Chloe Newbold

Mike Gross, Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Dear Chloe,

Thank you for your email which contained a request for information under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.

The lowest hourly rate paid to any employee is currently £9.43 an hour, however the 2021 cost of living award has not yet applied and when applied this will take this lowest rate above £9.50. There are 25 employees (approximately 13% of the total) currently paid below £9.50 an hour - this will fall to zero when the 2021 cost of living settlement is applied. In addition 31 casual workers are paid less than £9.50, the majority being College students who undertake temporary work in College for a low number of hours, with the lowest hourly rate for casuals being £8.79.

In 2020 the College used the following external employment agencies: Select, Venn, Eclectic Recruitment, Ann Pettengell Recruitment Ltd, Blue Arrow and Interaction Recruitment. Since the number of agency staff who worked for 12 consecutive weeks was a very small number, and in order to ensure that personal data is not inadvertently released, I can only confirm that number as between 0 and 5. We do not hold data on the wage rates paid to those staff who are provided from an external employment agency.

Between O and 5 members of staff earned over £50,000 and no members of staff earned over £80,000.

Yours,

Mike Gross
Bursar
Emmanuel College
Cambridge

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