Dear Jo Holloway and Emma Morgan,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 (FOIA) – REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

The City of London (CoL) acknowledges receipt of your request for information of 11 May 2016.

Public authorities are required to respond to requests within the statutory timescale of 20 working days beginning from the first working day after they receive a request. The Act does not always require public authorities to disclose the information which they hold.

The FOIA applies to the CoL as a local authority, police authority and port health authority. The CoL is the local and police authority for the “Square Mile”, ie the historic City of London, and not for London as a whole. Please see the following link to a map on the CoL's website, which shows the area covered:
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/maps/Pages/explo...<http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/maps/Page...>.
The CoL does have some functions, including Port Health Authority functions, which extend beyond the City boundary. For further information please see: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk<http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk>.

Yours sincerely,

Information Officer
Town Clerk’s Department
City of London
Tel: 020-7332 1209
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk<http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk>

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Dear Jo Holloway and Emma Morgan,

 

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST

 

Following receipt of your request for information on 11 May 2016 and our
acknowledgement of the same date, the City of London (CoL) responds as
follows:

 

Please can you provide the current organisational structure for ALL of the
INDIVIDUAL TEAMS and AREAS within Adults social Service’s (such as, but
not limited to, Learning Disabilities Team and Physical Disabilities Team
and so on).

 

Please ensure the following information is included:

 

1. The name of ALL DIRECTOR’S, HEAD’S OF SERVICE and SERVICE MANAGERS for
each of the above teams.  Please see attached organisational chart for our
Adults Social Care Team.  Please note that the CoL has a small residential
population of about 8,100 people and therefore the CoL has a small social
care team.

 

With regard to the names of staff below that of divisional head level,
where these are not already routinely disclosed into the public domain
(for example on the CoL’s website pages), the CoL applies the section
40(2) exemption (personal information) to disclosure under the FOIA.

 

The CoL applies the exemption because it considers that a breach of the
data protection principles under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) would
occur as a result of disclosure. In this instance, we consider that
Principle 1 would be breached by disclosure, ie the principle of fair and
lawful processing. There is no general expectation by staff, other than
the most senior managers, that their names and place of work details
should be automatically disclosed following FOI requests. It is one of the
reasons why our website provides staff names to departmental divisional
head level only, and why, usually, generic rather than individual email
contact addresses are provided on our website.

 

The CoL considers that where someone works, and who is their employer, is
personal information, just as such employment details would be considered
in the private sector. The Information Tribunal has upheld this view,
stating that "to release the name of an individual’s employer would be to
release significant personal data" (Appeal decision EA/2007/0058), and
hence could be a breach of the DPA. Such disclosure would inevitably take
place were the CoL to release the names of staff.

 

A public authority also has to consider a disclosure under the FOIA as a
disclosure to the world. Again, we note the Information Tribunal’s
statement that “Disclosure under [the] FOIA is effectively an unlimited
disclosure to the public as a whole” (Appeal reference EA/2006/0011 &
0013), which statement is also referred to by the Information
Commissioner, for example in the Information Commissioner’s Decision
Notice FS 50294078. Disclosure of names would therefore represent a
comprehensive overriding of the DPA.

 

We consider that it is necessary to pay due respect to the privacy of
employees in the public sector. We do not consider that, because a body
receives public funding to a greater or lesser degree, its employees
automatically forfeit their rights to privacy. We also do not consider
that the information that a particular named individual is a public sector
employee of a particular named public authority is information which in
itself would constitute information of general public interest. On the
contrary, in relation to the vast majority of public sector employees,
such information is manifestly of no general public interest, and
disclosure would therefore not pass the public interest test.

 

It is also the case that there is always going to be some level of staff
turnover, with employees either leaving the organisation or moving to a
different role or department. Therefore it is far more practical to simply
disclose generic information for service areas as these are less likely to
change as often. Ultimately, it is in any case the top management which
holds responsibility in an organisation for corporate decisions, and these
names are not withheld.

 

Please see also the further arguments in support of non-disclosure, by the
Information Commissioner in Decision Notice FS50184497, which stated that
the Commissioner could see no public interest arguments in support of
wholesale disclosure of names.

 

Finally, we note that the website of the information Commissioner's Office
(ICO) shows an extremely limited disclosure of employee names, to a degree
which implies a high threshold for the publication of such information in
relation to a public authority which falls within the scope of the FOIA.

 

In conclusion, with regard to this exemption, the CoL does not see any
legitimate interests in the public routinely having access to this
information, and considers that disclosure would not pay due respect to
the rights and freedoms of the data subjects, ie in this instance the
members of staff. The CoL does not consider that there are any conditions
under Schedule 2 of the DPA (which Schedule concerns conditions under
Principle 1 for processing personal information) which would permit
disclosure.

Nevertheless, we hope that what is disclosed assists.

If you wish to make a complaint about the way the CoL has handled your
enquiry, please make your complaint in writing to email address:
[1][email address]

For a link to the CoL's FOI complaints procedure, please visit the
following page: [2]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Feedback, at the end of which
is located the FOI complaints procedure. If, having used the CoL's
Complaints Procedure, you are still dissatisfied, you may request the
Information Commissioner to investigate. Please contact: Information
Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
Telephone: (01625) 545 700. Website: [3]www.ico.org.uk.

Please note that the Act applies to the City of London only as a local
authority, police authority and port health authority.

The CoL holds the copyright in this communication. Its supply does not
give a right to re-use in a way that would infringe that copyright, for
example, by making copies, publishing and issuing copies to the public or
to any other person. Brief extracts of any of the material may be
reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for
non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism,  review and news
reporting, subject to an acknowledgement of the copyright owner.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Kind regards

 

Executive Support Assistant, Director’s Office

 

Department of Community & Children’s Services | ( 020 7332 3653 |
[4]www.cityoflondon.gov.uk

 

References

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1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Feedback
3. http://www.ico.org.uk/
4. http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/