Human Resources - processing of organisation staff

The request was partially successful.

Dear NHS Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group,

Please could you provide the following information:

How many joiners, movers, and leavers do you process per year?

How many staff/whole time equivalents manage this process?

Do you have an automated system to manage ESR?

Do you use a single sign on solution across the organisation to manage the accounts?
If so, which solution do you have?

How many people are in your organisation's data quality team?

Yours faithfully,

Clive Townsend

Foi (NHS NEL CSU), NHS Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group

Dear Mr Townsend

RE: Freedom of Information Request

I am writing to formally acknowledge your request for information regarding Human Resources - processing of organisation staff which will be processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I can confirm your request was received on 18/12/2019 by NEL on behalf of the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) listed below. The references for your requests are shown alongside.

FOI.19.SDS191NHS Surrey Downs CCG

An initial investigation is currently taking place into whether the information you have requested is held by the CCGs and if so, whether it can be released in accordance with the legislation.

Any fees applicable to this request will be detailed in writing as soon as they can be determined. Your request will then be placed on hold and you will have the choice of whether to proceed with your request. Should any clarification of your request be required we will advise you accordingly.

If you require any assistance, or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact us quoting the reference number above.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team
NEL
[NHS Surrey Downs CCG request email]

Lower Marsh, 3rd Floor
Waterloo, London, SE1 7NT

www.nelcsu.nhs.uk
@NELCSU
LinkedIn

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Foi (NHS NEL CSU), NHS Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group

Dear Mr Townsend

I am writing on behalf of NHS Surrey Downs CCG to ask for clarification on your request, FOI.19.SDS191.

In order for the CCG to identify and locate the information requested we reasonably require clarification from you on the scope of your request. Freedom of Information Act 2000, Section 16 stipulates a duty for a public authority to provide advice and assistance when they receive an unclear or ambiguous request. Please provide clarification to the points below:

How many joiners, movers, and leavers do you process per year?

Until we receive this information from you, in line with current legislation your request will be placed on hold. If you require any assistance, or would like to discuss your request further, please do not hesitate to contact us quoting the reference number above.

Kind regards,

Freedom of Information Team
NEL
[NHS Surrey Downs CCG request email]

Lower Marsh, 3rd Floor
Waterloo, London, SE1 7NT

www.nelcsu.nhs.uk
@NELCSU
LinkedIn

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Dear Freedom of Information Team,

Thank you for reviewing my questions and reaching out for clarification.

If you have the figures for 01JAN19-31JAN19, accepting we've only just passed the new year, that would be great.
If easier to access and provide, I would be happy with the '18'19 financial year figures.
If either of these time periods are subject to unusual fluctuations such as caused by mergers or separation of services, could you provide the information for a year period before the event took place.

Yours sincerely,

Clive Townsend

Foi (NHS NEL CSU), NHS Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group

Dear Mr Townsend

I am writing on behalf of NHS Surrey Downs CCG to ask for clarification on your request, FOI.19.SDS191.

In order for the CCG to identify and locate the information requested we reasonably require clarification from you on the scope of your request. Freedom of Information Act 2000, Section 16 stipulates a duty for a public authority to provide advice and assistance when they receive an unclear or ambiguous request. Please provide clarification to the points below:

Question 2: Do you mean to manage the whole recruitment process, payroll elements, input into the ESR system?

Question 4: Can you define what "Single Sign-on" is?

Question 5:. Is this link to workforce statistics?

Until we receive this information from you, in line with current legislation your request will be placed on hold. If you require any assistance, or would like to discuss your request further, please do not hesitate to contact us quoting the reference number above.

Kind regards,

Freedom of Information Team
NEL
[NHS Surrey Downs CCG request email]

Lower Marsh, 3rd Floor
Waterloo, London, SE1 7NT

www.nelcsu.nhs.uk
@NELCSU
LinkedIn

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Dear Freedom of Information Team,

Thank you for looking to confirm the additional information.

I note that my last response offered an incorrect date range of January alone. The original query was a year, and the dates I offered should have read 1JAN19-31DEC19. The other potential date ranges are still valid and will leave to your discretion.

"Question 2: Do you mean to manage the whole recruitment process, payroll elements, input into the ESR system?"
No. My interest is very much post recruitment. I would like to understand the amount of effort required to manage the staff record within the ESR and the subsequent use of the information by the wider organisation - in this case "NHS Surrey Downs CCG". I state this as I appreciate you are working on the multiple requests I've made for the different CCG'. You may use the ESR only and the information recorded (name/email address) is not extracted for, or interfaced to, other systems and therefore the count I seek would be HR's staff management only. This may also exclude payroll if they use the same system for all staff but if there is a process to move ESR records to payroll (not actually conduct the payroll tasks), this would be included. I am seeking best figures and a rounded number would be acceptable.

Question 4: Can you define what "Single Sign-on" is?
By "Single sign on" solution I seek to understand whether your Trust use any technology that allows any staff member to log into a computer using an appropriate security method, and are then able to access all task related applications (i.e. MIG,EMIS etc) without needing to manually enter additional usernames and passwords.
The technology by which any of this may be achieved differs quite dramatically, hence the request using high-level terminology. You may have an active directory which allows direct access to emails or network drives and this in turn may have been extended to automatically log a user on to a clinical application. Alternatively, you may have a dedicated solution such as Microsoft's Vergence or Imprivata OneSign in use.
The reason for the question, which may help your colleagues offer a better response, is that I am looking to understand whether your organisation has processes and technologies to reduce the amount of duplicate effort required to create user accounts in systems across your organisations with the starting point being ESR.

"Question 5:. Is this link to workforce statistics?"
Without asking for clarification from you as to what a link to workforce statistics could offer, my question seeks to understand how many people you (NHS SDCCG) employ to review the quality of information recorded by, or delivered to, the CCG. The easiest example might be the delivery of activity data provided by an acute Trust for payment, but this could as easily apply to data quality checking of activity you record yourselves. From the response received from other organisations, some have a dedicated data quality team responsible for all information quality checking, others disseminate the role by department - the latter understandably proving very hard to quantify.

I hope these updates offer a clearer picture of the information I would like.

Yours sincerely,

Clive Townsend

Foi (NHS NEL CSU), NHS Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group

2 Attachments

Dear Mr Townsend,

Please find attached the response to FOI.19.SDS191 on behalf of Surrey Downs CCG.

Kind Regards,

Freedom of Information Team
NEL
[NHS Surrey Downs CCG request email]

Lower Marsh, 3rd Floor
Waterloo, London, SE1 7NT

www.nelcsu.nhs.uk
@NELCSU
LinkedIn

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