Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your request for information below, I have detailed information below in response to your enquiry and I hope you find the information of use.

The Council is not aware of any Compromise Agreement that has been drawn up that has included a term requiring the employee to forego their right to make requests under the Freedom of Information Act or the Data Protection Act.

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Good Morning,
Your enquiry is being looked at by our Legal Section and I have asked
them for a progress update today.
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin

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Good Afternoon,
Thank you for your email below. I have spoken to the Officer reviewing
your request and she has advised me she is drafting a detailed response
to you, which you will receive shortly.
The Council does apologise that you have had to wait an unacceptable
length of time for a full response to your reduced scope enquiry.
Thank you for your continued patience in this matter.
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin
Information Manager
Wirral Council

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Dear Mr Cardin,

I refer to your request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000, which was contained in your email of 1 January , in which you
asked for the following information:-

"Since the inception of Wirral Borough Council, or as far as records
go back, the annual figures for the total number of current
employees or ex-employees of Wirral Borough Council who have signed
compromise agreements directly related to the resolving of
dispute(s) / grievance(s) / internal and external investigation(s)
/ whistleblowing incident(s).

In addition to this, annual figures for the number of current
employees / ex-employees who have agreed, following the matter
being raised and made conditional as part of a compromise agreement
drawn up by Wirral Borough Council's legal team, to forgo their
right to approach the council in the future with Freedom of
Information and/or DPA Subject Access requests under the relevant
Acts"

The Council made an initial written response by email on 31 January 2011
in connection with the second part of your request and indicated that

they were not aware of any Compromise Agreement that has been drawn up
that had included a term requiring the employee to forego their right to
make requests under the Freedom of Information Act or the Data Protection
Act. You responded to this email on 31 January 2011 and redefined your
request for information (in respect of the first part of your original
request) as follows:

"Please can you exclude compromise agreements drawn up in the
following circumstances:

1. Purely redundancy situations
2. Purely PILON (payment in lieu of notice) situations
3. Equal pay claims
4. TUPE situations
5. COT3 agreements (where tribunal proceedings may or may not have
been initiated)

Also, to assist you further, I will narrow the time period down to
between the years 2005 to 2010 i.e. the last six years."

I apologise for the delay in responding to your request. This has been
caused by extensive inquiries to various departments within the Council as
to whether it is possible and how long it would take to extract the
information sought from the Council's IT systems and manual records. The
response to these inquiries indicates that to determine whether it holds
the information sought, the Council; would need to look manually at
employee personnel files, which would amount to approximately 6500 files.
There is no line of code in the Council's financial system which relates
directly  to compromise agreement and it is not possible to identify
them from the financial ledger. Because of a change in the method in which
the actual financial payments were made to employees who have signed
compromise agreements, it is not possible to search electronically against
payments made and would require a manual exercise to be undertaken to
identify such payments and whether compromise agreements were signed.

I consider that the exemption contained in section 12 (1) of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 applies to your requests (both the original and
the redefined request) as the authority estimates that the cost of
complying with request would exceed the appropriate limit and that
therefore the authority is not obliged to comply with your requests for
information. I have had regard to Regulation 5 of The Freedom of
Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees ) Regulations
2004, SI No 3244. This concerns where two or more requests for information
are made to a public authority by one person, " the estimated cost of
complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the total costs
which may be taken into account by the authority, under Regulation 4, of
complying with all of them" In estimating the costs of compliance, the
authority has complied with Regulation 4 (3) of the 2004 Regulations,
which provides that for the purposes of its estimate, a public authority
may take account only of the costs it reasonably expects to incur in
relation to the request in:-

(a) determining whether it holds the information,

(b) locating the information, or a document which may contain the
information,

(c) retrieving the information, or a document which may contain the
information,

(d) extracting the information from a document containing it.

The appropriate limit in the case of a public authority such as the
Council is £450 , which equates to18 hours, calculated at £25 per
hour. (Regulation 3(3) of the 2004 Regulations ). I have had regard to the
guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office in respecting of
using the 2004 Regulations .The authority has estimated that the cost of
complying with your request, would  exceed the appropriate limit of 18
hours (calculated on examining 6500 files at  10 minutes per file). To
respond to your refined request would still require an examination of
personal files to exclude the categories listed. The authority considers
the above estimate to be reasonable. The authority considers that it is
not in a position to comply with its obligation to confirm or deny whether
it holds the information sought under because to do this would itself
exceed the appropriate limit.

Having regard to the duty on the authority under Section 16 of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 to advise and assist an applicant requesting
information, the authority would advise that requests may be refined or
limited to come within the cost limit of £450.However it is difficult
to advise how this could be done in respect of your request  to bring
it within the limit, but If you would like to further refine or limit your
request, please let me know.

You have the right under Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000
to ask for an internal review of the use of the exemption under Section 12
in connection with the information requested. Please would you direct any
request for an internal review to Mr Surjit Tour, Head of Legal and Member
Services, Department of Law, HR and Asset Management, Town Hall, Brighton
Street, Wallasey, CH44 8ED. The internal review process is similar to the
Council's complaints procedure details of which are available here:
[1]http://www.wirral.gov.uk/my-services/adv...

If you are dissatisfied with the Council's response to the internal
review, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner,
whose address is the Information Commissioner's Office,

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF

[2]www.ico.gov.uk <[3]http://www.ico.gov.uk/>

Tel: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45
Fax: 01625 524510

Yours sincerely,

Rosemary Lyon,

Solicitor,

Wirral Borough Council

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References

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3. http://www.ico.gov.uk/
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Good Morning,
Thank you for your email shown below. I will contact legal services
today and ask them for an update. Thank you for your patience.
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin

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Good Morning,
Legal Services have your enquiry; I will telephone them this morning and
give you an update on where your enquiry is up to,
I do apologise for the delay in you receiving an answer.
Kind Regards
Jane Corrin
Information Manager
Wirral Council

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Dear Mr Cardin

I apologise for the delay in responding to your request for a review.

I will endeavour to provide you with my response by close of business
tomorrow as requested or at the very latest on Wednesday 25 May.

I appreciate you patience in this matter and once again apologise for not
providing my reply sooner.

Yours sincerely

Surjit Tour

Head of Legal & Member Services

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Department of Law, HR and Asset Management

Town Hall

Brighton Street

Wallasey

Wirral

CH44 8ED

Tel: 0151 691 8569

Fax: 0151 691 8482

Email: [1][email address]

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References

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Dear Mr Cardin

Further to my email of 23 May, please find attached my Review Decision
Letter.

If you have any queries, or if I can be of any further assistance please
do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Surjit Tour

Head of Legal & Member Services

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Department of Law, HR and Asset Management

Town Hall

Brighton Street

Wallasey

Wirral

CH44 8ED

Tel: 0151 691 8569

Fax: 0151 691 8482

Email: [1][email address]

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Dear Mr Cardin

If you are able to view the first page of the attachment then you can
scroll down the pages using the page number icon that appears on the
toolbar at the bottom of the page of the attachment. A full copy of my
letter has been sent to you.

However, I enclose a .pdf version for your reference.

Yours sincerely

Surjit Tour
Head of Legal & Member Services

Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council
Department of Law, HR and Asset Management
Town Hall
Brighton Street
Wallasey
Wirral
CH44 8ED

Tel: 0151 691 8569
Fax: 0151 691 8482
Email: [email address]

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