Total amount paid in sick pay

The request was refused by The Financial Services Authority.

Dear The Financial Services Authority,

I would like to know how much in total you have paid to staff in sick pay between August 2010 and July 2011, inclusive. I would also like to know how many people have been on sick absence for eight consecutive days or longer within that period and what this represents as a proportion of your overall workforce (eligible for sick pay).

Yours faithfully,

Joe Wiggins

Freedom of Information,

Telephone: 0207 066 7192
Email: [FSA request email]

Our Ref: FOI2166

Dear Mr Wiggins

Freedom of Information: Right to know request

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (the Act).

Your request was received on 22 August 2011 and will be processed in
accordance with the Act.

There may be a fee payable for the information you have requested. If
that is the case, you will be informed of the likely charges before we
proceed. The fee must be paid before the information is released.

If you have any queries please contact me.

Yours sincerely

Susan Currington

Information Access Team

Susan Currington | Information Access Team | Operations Services
|Operations Business Unit|

Financial Services Authority
25 The North Colonnade
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5HS

( 020 7066 1000

[1]www.fsa.gov.uk

show quoted sections

This communication and any attachments contains information which is
confidential and may be subject to legal privilege. It is for intended
recipients only. If you are not the intended recipient you must not copy,
distribute, publish, rely on or otherwise use it without our consent. Some
of our communications may contain confidential information which it could
be a criminal offence for you to disclose or use without authority. If you
have received this email in error please notify [email address]
immediately and delete the email from your computer.

The FSA reserves the right to monitor all email communications for
compliance with legal, regulatory and professional standards.

This email is not intended to nor should it be taken to create any legal
relations or contractual relationships. This email has originated from

The Financial Services Authority (FSA)
25 The North Colonnade,
Canary Wharf,
London
E14 5HS
United Kingdom

Registered as a Limited Company in England and Wales No.1920623.
Registered Office as above

Switchboard: 020 7066 1000
Web Site: http://www.fsa.gov.uk
*****************************************************************

References

Visible links
1. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/

Freedom of Information,

Our Ref: FOI2166

Dear Mr Wiggins

Freedom of Information : Right to know request

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (the Act) for the following information:

“I would like to know how much in total you have paid to staff in
sick pay between August 2010 and July 2011, inclusive. I would also
like to know how many people have been on sick absence for eight
consecutive days or longer within that period and what this
represents as a proportion of your overall workforce (eligible for
sick pay).”

Your request has now been considered and I can confirm that we hold
information that falls within the scope of your request.  However, we
cannot provide information requested in relation to the first part of your
request relating to the total paid in ‘…sick pay between August 2010 and
July 2011…’ because we estimate that it would exceed the 18 hour time
limit in order to comply with these requests.

This is because our data is not available in a readily extractable format
and we would need to review each sick record manually in order to extract
the relevant information.  We therefore consider that the following
exemption applies.

Section 12 (Costs of compliance exceeds appropriate limit)

The Act requires us to comply with a request, unless it would be too
expensive to do so, as estimated in accordance with the Freedom of
Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations
2004 made by the Ministry of Justice.  For the FSA, the cost limit is
£450, that is 18 working hours at the rate of £25 per person hour.  The
regulations allow us to take into account when estimating the cost of
complying with a request, the time spent determining whether we hold the
information requested; locating and retrieving it and extracting the
information from the relevant document(s)/systems.

As explained above, in relation to the first part of your request, the
information is not recorded in the format in which you have requested it
and is not easily extractable from the database.  There are 5530 incidents
of sickness listed against the period in question which would need to be
reviewed to determine accurately the total amount of sick pay paid.  In
order to do this, we would need to review each record manually.  We
estimate that it would take 5 minutes to review each file and extract the
relevant information.  On that basis, therefore, we estimate that to
comply with your request would exceed the appropriate cost limit.

As our policy is not to divert our resources from our regulatory functions
in order to meet requests under the Act in excess of the cost limit, we
will not carry out an exercise to identify the information you have
requested. 

However, taking the above cost of compliance into consideration, I can
confirm that we do hold information in relation to the latter part of your
request relating to’… how many people have been on sick absence for eight
consecutive days or longer within that period and what this represents as
a proportion of your overall workforce (eligible for sick pay’ for the
period in question. We are able to provide you with this within the cost
limit.  If you would like to receive this information, please let me
know.  Please be aware, we can also provide you with a figure based on the
average daily rate of our employees, multiplied by the number of days lost
to sickness.

Please let us know if you wish to receive this information.  You should be
aware that such a request will be treated as a new request, and the 20
working day time limit for processing would commence from the date you
submit your new request, in accordance with the Act.

If you have are unhappy with the decision made in relation to your request
you have the right to request an internal review.  If you wish to exercise
this right, you should contact us within three months of the date of this
letter.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you also
have a right of appeal to the Information Commissioner at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone:      01625 545 700

Website:        [1]www.ico.gov.uk

Yours sincerely

K. Edwards| Associate | Operations Services | Operations Business Unit
25 The North Colonnade
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5HS
Tel: 020 7066 8080
[2]www.fsa.gov.uk

show quoted sections

 

This communication and any attachments contains information which is
confidential and may be subject to legal privilege. It is for intended
recipients only. If you are not the intended recipient you must not copy,
distribute, publish, rely on or otherwise use it without our consent. Some
of our communications may contain confidential information which it could
be a criminal offence for you to disclose or use without authority. If you
have received this email in error please notify [email address]
immediately and delete the email from your computer.

The FSA reserves the right to monitor all email communications for
compliance with legal, regulatory and professional standards.

This email is not intended to nor should it be taken to create any legal
relations or contractual relationships. This email has originated from

The Financial Services Authority (FSA)
25 The North Colonnade,
Canary Wharf,
London
E14 5HS
United Kingdom

Registered as a Limited Company in England and Wales No.1920623.
Registered Office as above

Switchboard: 020 7066 1000
Web Site: http://www.fsa.gov.uk
*****************************************************************

References

Visible links
1. http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/
2. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/