Dear Mr Gibbons,
 
Oxford City Council – Reference:9899
 
Thank you for your email below.  Your request was received on 22nd
February 2021 and 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.
 
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) recognises the unprecedented
challenges all are facing during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
 
In particular they understand that resources, whether they are finances or
people, may be diverted away from usual compliance or information rights
work. Whilst the ICO can’t extend statutory timescales, they will not be
penalising public authorities for prioritising other areas or adapting
their usual approach during this extraordinary period.
 
Therefore while the Council will make every effort to comply with the
Statutory Requirements you may experience understandable delays when
making information rights requests during the pandemic.
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
Kathryn Winfield
Information Governance Requests Officer
 
Kathryn Winfield | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City
Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
Email: [email address] | T: 01865 252007
My working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays
 
Stop the virus from spreading. Keep Oxford safe.
Follow the guidance: Clean hands. Wear a face mask. Keep your distance.
Get tested if you have symptoms.
 
 
 
 

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Dear Mr Gibbons,
 
Oxford City Council – Reference:9899
 
Further to the acknowledgement below, I can respond to your Freedom of
Information Act 2000 request received on 22nd  February 2021 as follows:
 
For clarification, when I refer to Oxford City Council, I also intended to
include all subsidiaries including Oxford Direct Services and the like.
 
1.The Government is currently paying 80% of furloughed employees salary up
to £2,500 per month or £30K per year. For Oxford City Council employees
earning greater than £30K per year, is Oxford City Council making up the
difference between the Government’s contribution and their full salary?
The Council is making up the difference between the Furlough payment and
full salary for employees earning more than £30K per year.
 
2.      Please detail for each month between March 2020 and February 2021
how many employees of Oxford City Council earning in excess of £50K per
year have been furloughed. For each month please list the money received
from the Government and the contribution from Oxford City Council. Please
make the data available in Excel format.
 
See attached spreadsheet
 
3.      Please detail for each month between March 2020 and February 2021
how many employees of Oxford Direct Services earning in excess of £50K per
year have been furloughed. For each month please list the money received
from the Government and the contribution from Oxford City Council. Please
make the data available in Excel format.
 
Please see response to question 7 below.
 
To break this down further would require a significant amount of resource
time. Therefore, I am of the opinion, however, that retrieving the
information you require would exceed 18.5 working hours so consider
Section 12 of the FOIA to applies in this instance.
 
 
4.      What is the highest annual salary of an Oxford City Council
employee who has been furloughed. How many weeks were they in receipt of
furlough payments and what was their Job Title?
The highest salary of a furloughed employee was £65123 and furlough was
for 8 weeks. We have not provided the job title as it would breach
confidentiality as the individual could be identifiable. Please see
exemption below.
 
5.      What is the highest annual salary of an Oxford Direct Services
employee who has been furloughed. How many weeks were they in receipt of
furlough payments and what was their Job Title?
This would breach confidentiality as the individual could be identifiable.
Please see exemption below.
 
6.      How much furlough money to date has been received by Oxford City
Council from the Government  and how much in total has been contributed by
Oxford City Council.
The Council has received a total of £224,353.76 for Furlough claims and
has paid £72,516.43 to top up salary to full pay.
 
7.      How much furlough money to date has been received by Oxford Direct
Services from the Government  and how much in total has been contributed
by Oxford City Council.
 
 
 
 
Please note that grant for the February claim has not yet been received
from HMRC.
 
To break this down further would require a significant amount of resource
time. Therefore, I am of the opinion, however, that retrieving the
information you require would exceed 18.5 working hours so consider
Section 12 of the FOIA to applies in this instance.
 
Section 40
Under s.1(1)(a) FOIA I can confirm the Council does hold the job title
details. However, I consider this to be personal information as the
individual could be identifiable.The Council has not received consent from
the person concerned to disclose their details. To release this
information would contravene the data protection principles contained in
the Data Protection Act 2018.  Therefore, I  consider that Sections 40 (2)
of the FOIA is engaged.  
 
This email constitutes a Refusal Notice under section 17 of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and exemptions under section  40 (2) of the FOIA is
applied.
 
40- Personal information
 
(1)Any information to which a request for information relates is exempt
information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the
data subject.
(2)Any information to which a request for information relates is also
exempt information if—
(a)it constitutes personal data which does not fall within subsection (1),
and
(b)the first, second or third condition below is satisfied.
 
3A) The first condition is that the disclosure of the information to a
member of the public otherwise than under this Act—

 a. would contravene any of the data protection principles, or
 b. would do so if the exemptions in section 24(1) of the Data Protection
Act 2018 (manual unstructured data held by public authorities) were
disregarded.

3B)The second condition is that the disclosure of the information to a
member of the public otherwise than under this Act would contravene
Article 21 of the GDPR (general processing: right to object to
processing).]
4A)The third condition is that—
(a)on a request under Article 15(1) of the GDPR (general processing: right
of access by the data subject) for access to personal data, the
information would be withheld in reliance on provision made by or under
section 15, 16 or 26 of, or Schedule 2, 3 or 4 to, the Data Protection Act
2018, or
(b)on a request under section 45(1)(b) of that Act (law enforcement
processing: right of access by the data subject), the information would be
withheld in reliance on subsection (4) of that section.
(5A) The duty to confirm or deny does not arise in relation to information
which is (or if it
were held by the public authority would be) exempt information by virtue
of
subsection (1).
(5B) The duty to confirm or deny does not arise in relation to other
information if or to the
extent that any of the following applies—
(a) giving a member of the public the confirmation or denial that would
have to be
given to comply with section 1(1)(a)—
(i) would (apart from this Act) contravene any of the data protection
principles, or
(ii) would do so if the exemptions in section 24(1) of the Data Protection
Act 2018 (manual unstructured data held by public authorities) were
disregarded;
(b) giving a member of the public the confirmation or denial that would
have to be
given to comply with section 1(1)(a) would (apart from this Act)
contravene
Article 21 of the GDPR (general processing: right to object to
processing);
(c) on a request under Article 15(1) of the GDPR (general processing:
right of
access by the data subject) for confirmation of whether personal data is
being
processed, the information would be withheld in reliance on a provision
listed
in subsection (4A)(a);
(d) on a request under section 45(1)(a) of the Data Protection Act 2018
(law
enforcement processing: right of access by the data subject), the
information
would be withheld in reliance on subsection (4) of that section.
(7) In this section—
"the data protection principles" means the principles set out in—
(a) Article 5(1) of the GDPR, and
(b) section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018;
"data subject" has the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018
(see
section 3 of that Act);
"the GDPR", "personal data", "processing" and references to a provision of
Chapter 2 of Part 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018have the same meaning
as in
Parts 5 to 7 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3(2), (4), (10),
(11) and
(14) of that Act).
(8) In determining for the purposes of this section whether the lawfulness
principle in
Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR would be contravened by the disclosure of
information,
Article 6(1) of the GDPR (lawfulness) is to be read as if the second
sub-paragraph
(disapplying the legitimate interests gateway in relation to public
authorities) were
omitted.
 
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
 
Kathryn Winfield
Information Governance Requests Officer
 
Kathryn Winfield | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City
Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
Email: [2][email address] | T: 01865 252007
My working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays
 
Stop the virus from spreading. Keep Oxford safe.
Follow the guidance: Clean hands. Wear a face mask. Keep your distance.
Get tested if you have symptoms.
 
 
 
 
_____________________________________________

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Dear Mr Gibbons,
 
Apologies, Q7 answer missed off attachments, now attached
 
Kind regards
Kathryn Winfield
Information Governance Requests Officer
 
Kathryn Winfield | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City
Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
Email: [1][email address] | T: 01865 252007
My working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays
 
Stop the virus from spreading. Keep Oxford safe.
Follow the guidance: Clean hands. Wear a face mask. Keep your distance.
Get tested if you have symptoms.
 
 
 
 
_____________________________________________

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Dear Mr Gibbons,
 
Further to your two emails received on 23rd March 2021, I can respond as
follows:
 
 
You did provide the answer to the question: "What is the highest annual
salary of an Oxford Direct Services employee who has been furloughed. How
many weeks were they in receipt of furlough payments and what was their
Job Title?"
I do understand that you cannot provide Job title but I would like an
answer to the highest salary of ODS employee and the number of weeks that
they were furloughed.
 
The highest paid individual’s salary was £65,123. They were furloughed for
a total of 24 days during May/June.
 
 
7. How much furlough money to date has been received by Oxford Direct
Services from the Government  and how much in total has been contributed
by Oxford City Council.
 
No funding has been contributed to Oxford Direct Services from Oxford City
Council. The other figures were provided in the spreadsheet.
 
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Kathryn Winfield
Information Governance Requests Officer
 
Kathryn Winfield | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City
Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
Email: [email address] | T: 01865 252007
My working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays
 
Stop the virus from spreading. Keep Oxford safe.
Follow the guidance: Clean hands. Wear a face mask. Keep your distance.
Get tested if you have symptoms.
 
 
 
 

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Dear Mr Gibbons,
 
Oxford City Council – Reference:9899
 
Further to your email received on 25th March 2021, I can respond as
follows:
 
The reason that Oxford City Council does not make up the shortfall is
because Oxford Direct Services (ODS) is a teckal company and whilst wholly
owned by Oxford City Council they are independently run.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Kathryn Winfield
Information Governance Requests Officer
 
Kathryn Winfield | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City
Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS |
Email: [email address] | T: 01865 252007
My working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays
 
Stop the virus from spreading. Keep Oxford safe.
Follow the guidance: Clean hands. Wear a face mask. Keep your distance.
Get tested if you have symptoms.
 
 
 
 

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Dear Mr Gibbons,

Thank you for your email below, I have since forwarded your email onto Oxford Direct Services (ODS) and I will respond as soon as I am able.

Kind regards

Kathryn Winfield
Information Governance Requests Officer

Kathryn Winfield | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS | Email: [email address] | T: 01865 252007
My working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays

Stop the virus from spreading. Keep Oxford safe.
Follow the guidance: Clean hands. Wear a face mask. Keep your distance. Get tested if you have symptoms.

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Gibbons,

Further to your email below, please see the updated figures attached for all staff that have been furloughed

Yours sincerely,

Kathryn Winfield
Information Governance Requests Officer

Kathryn Winfield | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS | Email: [email address] | T: 01865 252007
My working days are Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays

Stop the virus from spreading. Keep Oxford safe.
Follow the guidance: Clean hands. Wear a face mask. Keep your distance. Get tested if you have symptoms.

show quoted sections