Good morning [Name Removed]

Thank you for your email and please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I was on leave. Your request has been a bit of a challenge to answer for 2 reasons.

1. The Powys Regional Partnership Board (PRPB) is the statutory legal body, established in April 2016 by the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act. Its key role is to identify key areas of improvement for care and support services in Powys. The Board has also been legally tasked with identifying integration opportunities between Social Care and Health.

The Board is multi-agency and brings together:

- local authority leaders,
- chief executives and managing directors from Powys County Council and Powys Teaching Health Board,
- Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations,
- the third sector,
- private organisations who deliver care and citizen representatives who either receive care, or are in a caring role.

The Regional Partnership Board team are a co-ordination team that aid in facilitating partnership working across all these people. We do not manage the recruitment or retention of any staff that work within those organisations so if you require information from them you would need to apply to them separately.

2. In addition to this, we have been advised by our information compliance team that regional partnership boards are not included as entities that are subject to freedom of information requests (please see below for a wider explanation).

The Regional Partnership board is a separate entity for the purposes of FOI. The FOI Act lists, at Schedule 1 (Freedom of Information Act 2000 (legislation.gov.uk)) , all Authorities that are bound by The Act. Powys County Council must respond to FOI's because the The Act, at Schedule 1 Paragraph 7 defines:

7. A local authority within the meaning of the Local Government Act 1972, namely- (a )in England, a county council, a London borough council, a district council or a parish council, (b )in Wales, a county council, a county borough council or a community council.

As an authority for the purposes of The Act, the Regional Partnership Board would not be caught under this definition.

Whilst we suspect that the Regional Partnership Board is not listed under Schedule 1 of the FOI act, we are unsure.

The reason for the uncertainty is that The Act lists a number of other ways in which an entity could be captured by The Act and they are based upon the legislation which formed the entity (for example "A joint authority established under Part IV of the Local Government Act 1985" is one of the definitions).

The RPB team are currently reviewing schedule 1 to determine whether the Regional Partnership Board comes under the purview of The Act and therefore whether The Partnership Board even needs to make a response to FOI requests submitted to it.

I have provided the information requested below. Please note that this information relates to our specific team which is currently hosted by the local authority and consists of a Regional Partnership Board Co-ordinator (created 2016), a Project and Programme Support Officer (created 2020) and a Project Support Officer (2019). These roles have only been recruited to once in their lifespan.

1. How many British Muslim employees have you recruited? Please provide figures for every year since 2010.
0

2. What is the average length of service?
There isn't one for British Muslims due to the previous answer. Average length of service for team members who are not British Muslims is 3.66 years.

3. How many British Muslims have you employed in communications/media roles since 2010?
0. There are currently no specific communications/media roles within the RPB team itself.

If you require wider information across the Council you can submit an FOI request on the following link https://en.powys.gov.uk/article/8469/Mak...

If you require wider information across Powys Teaching Health Board you can submit an FOI request on the following link https://pthb.nhs.wales/use-of-site/freed...

If you require wider information across the Third Sector you can contact PAVO on the contact form on the following link https://www.pavo.org.uk/about-pavo.html

Many thanks,

Kate Light
Swyddog Cymorth Prosiect /Project Support Officer
Gofal Cymdeithasol Oedolion a Bwrdd Partneriaeth Rhanbartho/Adult Social Care and Regional Partnership Board
Cyngor Sir Powys/Powys County Council
Ffon/Tel: 01597 827147

Working pattern: Mon-Thu 8.30am-5pm Fri 8.30am-3.30pm

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