Dear Jackson Bates,

Thank you for your email, submitted online on 18 January 2023.

As your request was received by Ordnance Survey on 18 January 2023 we will provide you with a response within 20 working days, as required by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, therefore by 15 February 2023.

In exceptional circumstances, it may be necessary for Ordnance Survey to extend this date to consider a complex public interest argument if engaging a qualified exemption. In such cases we will notify you of the revised date by which we would expect to provide a response.

Should you need to contact Ordnance Survey regarding your request at any time, please quote the allocated reference number in your correspondence.

Thank you for your enquiry.

Kind regards

FOI Team

Adanac Drive, Southampton, United Kingdom, SO16 0AS
www.os.uk | [email address]
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Dear Mr Bates,

Thank you for your email of 18 January 2023, requesting information from
OS in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000, as set
out in the extract below:

“Please could you provide the following information under the freedom of
information act covering the last 12 months, or the most recent 12 month
period recorded:

1.      Has the organisation used agencies to recruit temporary/contractor
staff?

1a.   If so please confirm the total agency spend on temporary/contractor
staff??

1b.   Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 1a, splitting
the spend by job title/specialism

2. Has the organisation used agencies to recruit permanent staff?

2a. If so please confirm the total agency spend on permanent staff?

2b.   Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 2a, splitting
the spend by job title/specialism

3. The contact name of the person responsible for dealing with permanent
recruitment?

4. The contact name of the person responsible for dealing with
temporary/contractor recruitment?”

I confirm that OS does hold the information you have requested.  Where the
information is exempt from disclosure this is stated. 

Taking each request in turn, I confirm the following:

Q1. Has the organisation used agencies to recruit temporary/contractor
staff? 

I confirm OS has used agencies to recruit temporary / contractor staff.

Q1a. If so, please confirm the total agency spend on temporary/contractor
staff?

I confirm that OS does hold the information that you have requested,
however, we are unable to comply with your request and provide the
information, as we consider the information to be exempt from disclosure
under section 12 of the FOIA, as explained below.

To be able to supply you with the requested information it would require a
manual exercise to review individual invoices for each temporary or
contractor worker that OS has engaged over the past 12 months to determine
the portion of cost that is agency spend (the invoiced amount includes
worker rate and is a combined charge).  

As this information is not readily accessible the time spent dealing with
the request will exceed a period of 18 hours and we are therefore entitled
to refuse to comply with the request pursuant to section 12(1) of the
FOIA, where the authority estimates the cost of complying with the request
would exceed the appropriate limit.

This is an absolute exemption and therefore not subject to the public
interest test.

However, under the duty to provide information and assistance in
accordance with section 16 of FOIA, we can provide the following
information which may assist you in this matter.

With a view to bringing your request within the cost limit, OS can provide
information about the number of temporary / contractor workers OS has
engaged in the last 12 months, or how many we had working for OS on a
particular date, and split by specialism, as an alternative to providing
the total spend.  We will treat a refined request as a new request for
information

Q1b.Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 1a, splitting
the spend by job title/specialism 

We are unable to provide a breakdown of the cost, please see the response
to question 1a above. 

2. Has the organisation used agencies to recruit permanent staff? 

I confirm OS have used agencies to recruit permanent staff.

2a. If so please confirm the total agency spend on permanent staff? 

I confirm we hold this information and that the total agency spend on
permanent staff is £171,009 from 1/1/22 to 31/12/22.

2b. Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 2a, splitting
the spend by job title/specialism 

I confirm we hold a breakdown of the spend on permanent staff by job title
however, we consider this information to be exempt from disclosure under
section 43(2) (prejudice to commercial interests) of the FOIA, therefore
this information will not be disclosed.

Under section 43(2) of the FOIA, information is exempt if its disclosure
would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any
person.  In this case, we consider that disclosure of the requested
information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of OS. 

The agency fee is a commercial agreement negotiated by OS with the
individual supplier .  Disclosure of this information would undermine our
competitive negotiating position and harm our ability to negotiate
successfully in the future.

This is a qualified exemption, and we are required to consider the public
interest.

Public Interest Test

OS recognises the need for transparency. However, this must be balanced
against the public interest in allowing the organisation to protect its
commercial information and not place itself at a disadvantage in the
competitive market in which it operates.

Section 43(2) is a prejudice-based exemption, and there is a public
interest inherent in avoiding the harm specified. OS considers that the
prejudice would be likely to occur and would involve an adverse effect on
OS’s revenues if we were unable to recruit and retain people with the
required skills base to perform the necessary functions for OS to operate
in a commercially competitive marketplace

In addition, agencies are usually used to recruit talent into specialist
roles with a competitive salary. Given OS’ size, often these are roles
where there is only one position within our organisation.  As the
permanent agency fee is a percentage of the overall salary, it would be
possible to deduce an individual employee’s salary from the agency fee,
and we consider this to be personal data however, we have not relied on
section 40(2) personal data exemption in this response.

3. The contact name of the person responsible for dealing with permanent
recruitment? 

I confirm the team responsible for dealing with recruitment is the OS
Resourcing team.

The information relating to the contact name, is held by OS but is exempt
from disclosure under section 40(2) (personal information) of the FOIA, as
the information constitutes personal data.

Section 40(2) provides that personal data is exempt information if one of
the conditions set out in section 40(3) is satisfied. In our view,
disclosure of this information would breach the data protection principles
contained in the General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection
Act 2018

In reaching this decision, we have particularly considered:

• the reasonable expectations of the employees: given their positions,
OS considered that none of the individuals would have a reasonable
expectation that their personal data would be disclosed;
• the consequences of disclosure; and
• any legitimate public interest in disclosure.

Section 40(2) is an absolute exemption and therefore not subject to the
public interest test.

However, under the duty to provide information and assistance in
accordance with section 16 of FOIA, we can provide the following
information which may assist you in this matter. 

You can find out information in relation to recruitment on our [1]website
and can contact us via the careers [2]contact form.

4. The contact name of the person responsible for dealing with
temporary/contractor recruitment?  

See response to question 3 above.

Internal Review
Your enquiry has been processed according to the Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) 2000.  If you are unhappy with our response, you may request
an internal review with our Internal Review Officer by contacting them,
within 40 working days of receipt of our final response to your FOI
request, as follows:

Internal Review Officer
Customer Service Centre
OS
Adanac Drive
Southampton
SO16 0AS

E-mail: [3][Ordnance Survey Limited request email]

Please include the reference number above. You may request an internal
review where you believe OS has:

• Failed to respond to your request within the time limits (normally 20
working days)
• Failed to tell you whether or not we hold the information
• Failed to provide the information you have requested
• Failed to explain the reasons for refusing a request
• Failed to correctly apply an exemption or exception

The Internal Review Officer will not have been involved in the
original decision. They will conduct an independent internal review and
will inform you of the outcome of the review normally within 20 working
days, but exceptionally within 40 working days, in line with the
Information Commissioner’s guidance. 

The Internal Review Officer will either: uphold the original decision,
provide an additional explanation of the exemption/s applied or release
further information, if it is considered appropriate to do so.

Appeal to Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
If, following the outcome of the internal review you remain unhappy with
our response, you may raise an appeal, within three months of receiving
our response, with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Further information can be found on the ICO website (ico.org.uk) or you
may wish to call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.

Thank you for your enquiry.

Kind regards,

Elizabeth Cole

Freedom of Information Officer, Legal Services

Adanac Drive, Southampton, United Kingdom, SO16 0AS

[4]www.os.uk | [5][Ordnance Survey Limited request email]

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Moment

This email and any attachments are intended only for the intended
recipient and may contain sensitive information. If you are not the
intended recipient, please immediately delete this email and inform the
sender.

OS email communications may be monitored to ensure the secure and
effective operation of our systems and for other lawful purposes. Subject
to contract: No rights are to be derived from any proposal contained in
this email until a written agreement containing all necessary terms is
executed between the relevant parties.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Ordnance Survey Limited (Company Registration number 09121572)
Registered Office: Explorer House
Adanac Drive
Southampton SO16 0AS
Tel: 03456 050505
[11]http://www.os.uk

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