Staff Costs Information

The request was partially successful.

Dear Billingham Town Council,

For the financial years 2013/14, 2014/15, and 2015/16, and projected levels for 2016/2017, can you provide the following information:

1) How many people does Billingham Town Council (BTC) employ?
2) How many of these are employed in the cafe/hub at John Whitehead Park?
3) What are the total earnings of all employees paid by BTC?
4) What are the total earning of all cafe/hub employees paid by BTC?

Earnings to include salaries, allowances, expenses, bonuses, compensation and employer’s pension contributions. Please omit any personal data so it does not breech any data protection laws, please provide total figures to prevent anyone being specifically identified. Results in an electronic spreadsheet would be preferred.

Yours faithfully,

Andy

Just to acknowledge receipt of your FOI request of 6.1.17 . The reply is
being prepared and you will receive this in due course. Colin Pollard,
Chair, Billingham Town Council

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Graeme Robertson left an annotation ()

A freedom of information request asking for some of the same information here has already been refused by Billingham Town Council. North Billingham Residents Association have lodged an official complaint over the way BTC handled their FOI to the Information Commissioner.

1 Attachment

  Hello Andy, Please find attached the requested information. Please note
that we are unable at this stage to provide estimated total staff costs
for the financial year 2016-7, but these will become available at the end
of this financial year.
   Yours sincerely, Colin Pollard, Chair, Billingham Town Council ( on
behalf of the executive officer of BTC )

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Graeme Robertson left an annotation ()

Andy asked BTC: What are the total earning of all cafe/hub employees paid by BTC? Earnings to include salaries, allowances, expenses, bonuses, compensation and employer’s pension contributions.
The reply from Cllr Pollard has only quoted the salaries and he has not made it clear if the figures include or exclude allowances, expenses, bonuses, compensation and employer’s pension contributions. If it was me, would not accept the response as is and ask him to clarify if the figures are salaries only, and if so to provide the rest of the information.

Hello Andy, Having checked the regulations for FOI requests I am now aware
that all requests must have a name and a contact address. We have supplied
most of the information which you requested and obviously we cannot – and
will not- withdraw that. However, before we can release any further
information we must have a contact address, which is where any further
information will be sent. Yours sincerely, Colin Pollard, Chair,
Billingham Town Council

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Graeme Robertson left an annotation ()

Andy, I don't agree with the BTC comment and suggest you contact BTC and point out the information below to them:

The Information Commissioner states that contact information for a Freedom of Information request can be a postal or email address.
See
https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/offici...

It says:
What are the legal requirements for a request?

For your request to be dealt with according to the Freedom of Information Act, you must:

contact the relevant authority directly;
make the request in writing, for example in a letter or an email. You can make a verbal or written request for environmental information;
give your real name; and give an address to which the authority can reply. This can be a postal or email address.
You do not have to:

mention the Freedom of Information Act or Environmental Information Regulations, although it may help to do so;
know whether the information is covered by the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental Information Regulations; or say why you want the information.

Graeme Robertson left an annotation ()

For avoidance of doubt Andy, the Freedom of Information act 2000 does not state that responses must only be sent in hard copy to a postal address. Any information supplied as a response to a Freedom of Information request can be sent via E Mail - and placed by the requester in the public domain if they so choose. BTC have no right to claim or insist that the remaining information must be sent in hard copy to a postal address. To do so would also be un-necessarily wasting time and money.