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Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence

Jon Baylis made this Freedom of Information request to Oxford City Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

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Dear Oxford City Council,

1. I would like to know the number of Oxford City Council employees who have formally or informally disciplined due to sickness absence every month in the past five years.

2. I would like to know the number of Oxford Direct Services employees who have formally or informally disciplined due to sickness absence every month in the past five years.

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Oxford City Council – Reference: 10558

Dear Mr Bayliss,

Thank you for your email below. Your request was received on 6th November 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.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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 Bayliss,

Further to the acknowledgement below, I can respond to your Freedom of Information Act 2000 request received on 7th November 2021 as follows:

Please see below:
We don't hold records on the information requested as absence management is undertaken locally by line management.

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 – [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,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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 freedomofinformation,

Can you please provide clarification and details of how absence management is dealt with?

Do you mean to say that the HR Departments of both Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services keep no record of absence management? If someone is identified as abusing time off sick then how is the issue ever to be dealt with if the respective HR departments have no records?

Yours sincerely,

Jon Baylis

Dear Mr Baylis,

Thank you for your email below. Please be advised that this is being responded to as a follow on question, and not as an Internal Review. I have passed your email to the relevant team, who will respond to you directly.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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 Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

I have not yet received a response .

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Dear Mr Baylis,

Thank you for your email below. Please be advised that your email has been passed to the service to respond to.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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 Baylis,

Please find below reply to the follow on question for FOI number 10558.

Information on absences is held centrally within the HR management information system. This information is used to monitor absence levels at a corporate level and for managers to consider if action is appropriate at a local level. Managers are expected to manage absence locally and we have comprehensive guidance in place to assist them with this. We do not hold a centralised record of actions taken by line managers. Should HR need to be involved in a particular case then management records would be available from the line manager.

The information is therefore available within the organisation, but not in a format that enables us to provide a response to your request.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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 Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

I am confused regarding your response of 17 January 2021.

You confirm that you hold the information that I have requested, but not in a format that enables you to provide a response to my request.

What software or document management system are you using to manage the employee absence information? In what format is the data recorded and stored? Why are you not able to extract the information I have requested and provide a response?

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Dear Mr Baylis,

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your email below. Please be advised that I have passed this on to the relevant person to respond to.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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 Baylis,

Please see below reply to your follow on question.

As stated previously, information about informal and formal actions in relation to absence management is kept locally by line managers. It is not in a centralised management information system and therefore not in a format in which it can be collated.

We have responded to your freedom of information request number 10558 in full, and we have provided answers to three follow on questions. We now consider the matter closed. If you have any further requests for additional information/follow on questions in relation to this subject, please provide a non what do they know email address that we can use to communicate with you as these types service questions fall outside of Freedom of Information.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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 Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

You have not provided answer to request of 18 January 2022:

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Dear Mr Baylis,

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your email below.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

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Dear Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

I am still waiting for a reply to my request submitted on 18 January 2022.

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Dear Mr Bayliss,

Thank you for your email.

I have been asked to respond to you regarding your request for a review of the Council's handling of your Freedom of information request regarding Employees disciplined due to sickness absence.

I can see that you originally sent in your request 7th November 2021 and we provided an answer on 6th December 2021.

Having reviewed this response, it was in my opinion a little vague, and you were justified in your follow up question to request more clarity regarding the answer.

In subsequent responses however, in my view the City Council has been very open and has given you an explanation of the circumstances surrounding this matter.

I believe that this can be summed up as follows;

Whilst I agree that the initial one line answer that was sent to you was not comprehensive enough in its explanation, I believe that the answers to your subsequent follow up questions have answered your questions fully as to why the information cannot be sent to you, in that it is not stored in a collatable, anonymisable way.

This concludes my Internal Review of your Freedom of Information case.

Kind regards

Sal Bartlett

Information Governance Administrator

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Dear Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

Are you saying that any disciplinary action is taken by local line managers and is never reported to the HR manager of either Oxford City Council or Oxford Direct Services? I do not believe that local line managers would be able to implement disciplinary action without involvement of the HR manager. Please confirm or deny.

Please provide details of how line managers track, report and collate absence management statistics e.g., spreadsheet, some other document management system, notes on bits of paper?

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Dear Mr Bayliss,

Thank you for your patience while I found out more information for you regarding this matter.

Our Human Resources department have confirmed that as advised before disciplinary matters are managed at a local level:

Managers are expected to manage absence locally and we have comprehensive guidance in place to assist them with this. We do not hold a centralised record of actions taken by line managers. Should HR need to be involved in a particular case then management records would be available from the line manager.

I have received more information about the nature of the sickness absence recording process for you which is as follows:

Line managers record all sickness absence in our HR information system and a Bradford Factor Score is generated from this data. Each line manager therefore has access to the full sickness absence history and Bradford Factor score (known locally as the Oxford factor) for all of their staff. They are expected to refer to this information and take it into account each time an employee has a sickness absence.

The calculating for the absence score for a 12 month period is:-

number of periods of absence x number of periods of absence x number of days of absent.

I hope this answers your follow up question satisfactorily.

Kind regards

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Dear Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

Your response is still unsatisfactory.

1. You have provided no specific details of your HR information system. Please provide details.

2. How many line managers are there at both Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services?

3. Why are line managers not able to provide information regarding the number of employees who have been disciplined due to sickness absence?

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Attendance Management Policy and Procedure 2004 V4.0.pdf

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Dear Mr Baylis

Freedom of Information, Oxford City Council – Reference:

Please accept my apologies for the delay to your Freedom of Information
Act 2000 follow on questions. Further to the acknowledgement below, I can respond to
your follow on questions as follows:

Response

1. You have provided no specific details of your HR information system. Please provide details. The Council uses MHR iTrent
2. How many line managers are there at both Oxford City Council and Oxford Direct Services? 194
3. Why are line managers not able to provide information regarding the number of employees who have been disciplined due to sickness absence? We have a large number of managers who deal with sickness absence issues for their own teams. The actions taken are not centrally recorded on our HRIS and therefore we are unable to report the number of people that have been dealt with under the formal procedure of our attendance policy.

I have also attached our attendance policy for reference.

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 – [2][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

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Dear Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

You have provided no details as to how line managers record information.

Just because information is not recorded in your HR system that is no excuse not to provide requested information. If you hold the information then I believe you are obliged to provide it.

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

Dear Jon Baylis

Please accept our apologies for the delay in replying to your email received on 1 November 2022 requesting a review of the Council's handling of your Freedom of Information request reference 10558.

An officer has been assigned to conduct the review of this matter as a priority and will provide you with a response as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

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Jon Baylis left an annotation (24 December 2022)

A complaint was submitted to the ICO regarding Oxford City Council's response to the FOI request. The outcome was as follows:
2. The Commissioner’s decision is that Oxford City Council (OCC) has failed to comply with its duties under section 1(1)(b) of FOIA.
3. The Commissioner requires OCC to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation. • OCC must issue a fresh response and disclose the requested information; or • Provide a refusal notice in accordance with its obligations under section 17 of FOIA stating the FOIA exemption it wishes to rely on.
4. OCC must take these steps within 35 calendar days of the date of this decision notice. Failure to comply may result in the Commissioner making written certification of this fact to the High Court pursuant to section 54 of the Act and may be dealt with as a contempt of court.

IR response 10558 01.11.22.pdf

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OCC Attendance Management Policy and Procedure 2004 V4.0.pdf

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ODS Attendance Management Policy May 2023.pdf

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Dear Jon Baylis

Oxford City Council Freedom of Information – Reference: 10558

Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in replying to your email received on 2 November 2022. My response to your internal review request is attached.

Yours sincerely

Information Governance Officer

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Dear Oxford City Council,

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

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence'.

I reject your use of the S12 exemption. If line managers are using i-trent, there is no good reason as to why it should take in excess of 1 hour to collate their records.

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

Yours faithfully,

Jon Baylis

FOI 10558 response 17.07.23.pdf

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Dear Jon Baylis

Oxford City Council Freedom of Information - Reference: IR2023/00156 /
10558

Please find attached a response to your internal review request received
on 17 July 2023.

Yours sincerely

Information Governance Officer

Website: [1]www.oxford.gov.uk | Follow us on Twitter:
[2]www.twitter.com/OxfordCity | Like us on Facebook:
[3]www.facebook.com/OxfordCityCouncil

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Oxford City Council & Oxford Direct Services - Employees disciplined due to sick absence

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Jon Baylis left an annotation (24 December 2022)

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