Dear University of Cambridge,

In response to a previous Freedom of Information request[1] you have stated that the University agreed 4 post-dismissal compensation settlements in the period December 2008 to 13
December 2009. For each post-dismissal compensation settlement since December 2008, please tell me the amount agreed (in pounds) in the settlement. If the exact amounts cannot be revealed due to data protection concerns, I am happy to accept the amounts to the nearest appropriate figure (provided you indicate this figure in your response), cf. the "When should salaries be disclosed?" guidance note[2].

Also, if it is possible to provide the following information without revealing personal data in a way which would be unfair, for each amount, please indicate the category of dismissed staff (academic, academic-related, etc.) with whom the settlement was made.

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles

[1] http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ap...

[2] http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

Dear FOI,

You will no doubt be aware of the timetable given in the "Joint Report of the Council and the General Board on disciplinary, dismissal, and grievance procedures: Notice and announcement of ballot" as printed on page 552 of the Reporter, No 6179:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2009...

This gives 12 March 2010 as the deadline for the receipt by the Registrary of fly-sheets to be circulated with the voting papers for this ballot. As you are probably also aware, one of the issues in the discussion of the proposed reforms that are the subject of this ballot is the cost to the University of dismissal proceedings under the current arrangements.

Consequently I would strongly encourage you to provide the requested information sufficiently far in advance of 12 March 2010 that those contemplating writing fly-sheets have adequate time to consider any information unearthed by this request. I would also observe that the Information Commissioner is likely to view a delay as grounds for issuing a Decision Notice against the University ("the effect of delay or other non-compliance served the purposes of the public authority and requires censure in an adverse Decision Notice (e.g. avoiding disclosure at a critical time)"):

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

Yours sincerely,

Bruce Beckles

Dear University of Cambridge,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of University of Cambridge's handling of my FOI request 'Financial value of post-dismissal compensation settlements'.

In the University's refusal of my request, it has said the information I require is exempt under Sections 40(2) and 40(3) of the Freedom of Information Act (2000). However, in order for these exemptions to be engaged the information in question must be (or contain) "personal data" in the sense of Section 1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998, the relevant part of which reads:

"personal data" means data which relate to a living individual who can be identified—
(a) from those data, or
(b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come into the possession of, the data controller,

The only data I have about the individuals in question is that they left the University at some point in the past and, at some point since their departure, reached a financial settlement with the University. I therefore cannot see how it would be possible for me to associate the information I have requested with any identifiable individuals. Consequently I do not believe that this information is personal data (in the sense specified above) and so Section 40(2) (and consequently Section 40(3)) of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) are not engaged.

The University has also said that it is relying on Section 43 "as disclosure of the information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the University by making public the level at which it is prepared potentially to compromise individual claims". However, this does not seem reasonable to me for the following reasons:

(a) One of the principal guiding factors in determining the settlement amounts of unfair dismissal claims will be the maximum and average amounts awarded by employment tribunals, and these are a matter of public record.

(b) In any individual case the other significant determining factors are likely to be specific to the individual, such as the individual's salary, length of service, reason for dismissal, the University's assessment of the likelihood of an employment tribunal finding for the individual, and so on. Furthermore, one would expect that the individual's union or legal advisors would advise them of this, should it not be obvious to them.

(c) No other details of the cases of the individuals with whom the University has reached these settlements would be made available by the University releasing the information requested here. As noted in (b) above, other than information which is already public (such as (a) above), it is specific details which would be expected to the deciding factor in the value of the compensation settlement. Consequently, should a future individual wishing to negotiate compensation with the University attempt to refer to these figures, they could be truthfully told that those figures would only be applicable to individuals in similar circumstances and, as the relevant circumstances are not a matter of public record, the figures are irrelevant to their particular case.

Thus even if the figures were released it seems unlikely that the University's commercial interests would be prejudiced. I further observe that, concerning claims that releasing the requested information "would be likely to prejudice", in the Information Tribunal hearing of John Connor Press Associates Limited v The Information Commissioner (EA/2005/0005) the tribunal stated that:

"the chance of prejudice being suffered should be more than a hypothetical possibility; there must have been a real and significant risk".

I do not feel that there is such a risk, and certainly the University has not, to date, made any arguments that demonstrate "a real and significant risk" in this regard. However, even if it were likely that the University's commercial interests would be prejudiced, I believe that the public interest in releasing this information outweighs the public interest in disclosure for the following reasons:

(1) The University is currently attempting to reform its dismissal procedures, in part on the basis that the existing procedures are inadequate. However, the University has, to date, provided very little evidence to back up this claim. There is therefore a significant public interest in knowing how much the existing procedures are costing the University and one reasonable way of measuring this is by looking at the values of the dismissal settlements made by the University with former employees.

(2) The University is a publicly funded body - if the University is failing to following proper procedures in dealing with staff such that it has to make significant financial settlements against unfairly dismissed staff, then it is clearly in the public interest that this be revealed. But even if the University is following proper procedures with respect to dealing with its staff, there is still a public interest in the University being accountable for how its money is spent.

In addition, I wish to complain that the University has failed to comply with Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) as it has failed "to provide advice and assistance" in relation to this request. Specifically, if the University genuinely believes that the individual compensation amounts are "personal data" and so exempt, it could still have provided me with an aggregated total amount for all the settlements and/or the average settlement amount, both of which clearly are not "personal data". Further, even if the University genuinely believes there is some likelihood of risk to its commercial interests in disclosing exact figures, any such risk is clearly less with respect to the derived figures, and, in particular, considerably less with respect to the aggregated total amount. I therefore feel that, if the University felt the actual information requested was exempt, it should have offered to provide me with these derived figures.

I also wish to complain that the University has failed to properly comply with section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) by failing to provide its reasons for its belief that the public interest in not disclosing the information requested outweighs the public interest in disclosing it, and by failing to explain which exemption in Section 43 it is relying on.

Furthermore, I wish to complain that the University has failed to comply with Section 10(1) of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) as its response has not been "prompt" (as is required by Section 10(1)). The arguments used by the University as to why Sections 40(2), 40(3) and 43 apply are reasonably general arguments that are concerned with the general nature of the information requested rather than the specific data that made up that information. Making those arguments therefore should not have required the University to actually retrieve that information. It is difficult, therefore, to see why this refusal could not have been communicated to me much sooner.

In addition, as was communicated to the University in my e-mail of 22 February 2010, there were particular circumstances which meant that it was particularly important that the information requested was received before 1pm on 12 March 2010. (Note that this deadline
was set by the University itself on 17 February 2010, which was after I had made my original request.) In light of this, the University's decision to communicate its refusal to provide the requested information to me at about 2:30pm on 12 March 2010 could be construed as an attempt to delay providing the requested information (or reasons why that information could not be provided) that served the purposes of the University authorities, namely to prevent that information being used in fly-sheets for the upcoming ballot on the proposed reforms to the University's Statute U:

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2009...

Finally, I would remind you that the Information Commissioner's Office has already had occasion to communicate with the University regarding its failure to carry out internal reviews of FOI requests in a reasonable time period (ICO Case Reference Number FS50246295). I would hope, therefore, that this request for an internal review would be handled in accordance with the Information Commissioner's guidance regarding the time limits on carrying out internal reviews:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/l...

I would also hope that, taking into account that voting in the aforementioned ballot is expected to commence around 23 April 2010, the review will be held (and its results communicated to me) promptly.

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

Yours faithfully,

Bruce Beckles