Dear Ms Bennet

 

FOI Request ref: 6015 / Total Expenditure on Qualified Social Worker
Agency Staff

 

Thank you for your request for information about the above. Your request
was received on 25/8/2015 and I am dealing with it under the terms of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We always aim to respond as quickly as possible, and in this case will do
so no later than 22/9/2015, which is the 20 working day deadline. The
deadline is counted from the first working day we receive it, not the date
a letter is written / posted or an email sent.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, I will
let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you, and you will be
required to pay before we proceed in dealing with your request.

Please quote the above reference number in any communication regarding
this request.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Amilia Holland

Customer Information Adviser

 

East Sussex County Council

Communities Economy and Transport Directorate

W1D, County Hall

St Anne’s Crescent

Lewes

East Sussex BN7 1UE

 

Phone: 01273 482913
Fax: 01273 481208

email: [1][East Sussex County Council request email]   web: [2]www.eastsussex.gov.uk/foi

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email

 

 

This message is intended for the use of the addressee only and may
contain confidential or privileged information. If you have received it in
error please notify the sender and destroy it. You may not use it or copy
it to anyone else.

E-mail is not a secure communications medium. Please be aware of this
when replying. All communications sent to or from the County Council
may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with
relevant legislation.

Although East Sussex County Council has taken steps to ensure that this
e-mail and any attachments are virus free, we can take no responsibility
if a virus is actually present and you are advised to ensure that the
appropriate checks are made.

You can visit our website at http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[East Sussex County Council request email]
2. http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/foi

 

 

Dear Ms Bennet

 

FOI Request ref: 6015 / Total Expenditure on Qualified Social Worker
Agency Staff

 

Thank you for your request for information about the above, which has been
dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Your
request and our response are set out below. Please note that any
information we provide is subject to the copyright and reuse of
information terms and conditions set out at the bottom of this email.

 

REQUEST

 

Please can you confirm what your total expenditure (excluding VAT)  on
Qualified Social Worker agency staff was during the financial year
2014-15?

 

RESPONSE

 

Please note this information is recorded differently by Personnel and
Training, Adult Social Care and Children’s Services. Personnel and
Training and Children’s Services record agency spend differently to Adult
Social Care. This is why Adult Social Care are unable to provide
information that Personnel and Training and Children’s Services are able
to.

 

Information held by Personnel and Training: East Sussex County Council
source the majority of our agency Social Workers through a neutral vendor
arrangement with Comensura. Our expenditure for the 2014-15 financial year
was £275,769 (excluding VAT).

 

Information held by Children’s Services: The only non-Commensura Agency
Spend on QSW in Children's Services for the financial year 2014/15 is as
follows: £14,956.75 (period covered 5/1/15 to 31/3/15)

 

Information held by Adult Social Care: An extract from the payments system
identifies Adult Social Care and Public Health agency spend not directly
and immediately identified as through Comensura (agency), in excess of
£570,000, however costs relate to not only Social Workers but drivers,
assistants and admin staff. In order to identify whether staff engaged are
Qualified Social Workers you would have to read each of the 328 invoices
separately. A conservative estimate is that it would take 10 minutes to
locate and read each invoice. This amounts to over 50 hours and therefore
over the 18 hour limit.

Section 12 FOIA 2000 provides that a public authority is not obliged to
comply with a request for information if it estimates that meeting the
request would exceed the appropriate cost limit. This ‘appropriate limit’
is set out in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate
Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. The ‘appropriate limit’ for non Central
Government public authorities is currently set at £450. In relation to
staff time, this is calculated at a rate of £25 per member of staff per
hour. This effectively equates to a time limit of 18 staff hours. To
ensure an effective assessment of the time it would take to respond to
your request, I have asked the relevant officer to estimate how long it
would take for them to identify and locate the information you seek
(please see above). The estimate for responding to your request exceeds 18
hours and therefore exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’. Where a public
authority estimates that responding to the request would exceed the
appropriate limit, there is no obligation on the public authority to carry
out searches up to the 18 hour limit. Section 12 effectively removes the
information from the scope of the duty to disclose altogether.

 

I hope that this answers your enquiry. If you believe that the County
Council has not complied with the FOI Act in responding to your request,
you may ask for an internal review. If you wish to do so, please set out
the grounds of your appeal in writing to:

 

Philip Baker, Assistant Chief Executive, East Sussex County Council,
County Hall, St Anne’s Crescent, Lewes, East Sussex. BN7 1UE.

or by email to him at [1][email address]

 

Please quote the FOI reference number in any communication regarding this
particular request.

 

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you then
have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a
decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot make a decision
unless you have exhausted the County Council’s internal review procedure
as described in the previous paragraph. The Commissioner can be contacted
at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane,
Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Tel: 0303 123 1113.  [2]www.ico.org.uk

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Amilia Holland

Customer Information Adviser

 

East Sussex County Council

Communities, Economy and Transport

W1D, County Hall

St Anne’s Crescent

Lewes

East Sussex BN7 1UE

 

Phone: 01273 482913
Fax: 01273 481208

email: [3][East Sussex County Council request email]   web: [4]www.eastsussex.gov.uk/foi

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Copyright and Re-Use of information

1. Providing you with documents under the Freedom of Information Act does
not give you an automatic right to re-use those documents in a way that
would infringe copyright – for example by making multiple copies, or by
publishing / issuing copies to the public.

2. Copyright in the information is owned by East Sussex County Council
and/or its contractor(s) unless otherwise stated. Brief extracts of the
material can be reproduced under the “fair dealing” provisions of the
Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988 (S.29 and S.30) for the purposes of
research for non-commercial purposes, private study, criticism, review and
news reporting.

3. We do not give permission for this information to be used for the
purposes of direct marketing.

4. If you wish to use this information then, in accordance with the
Regulations on the Re-use of Public Sector Information 2015, you must
first ask our permission. Such re-use may or may not involve the granting
of a licence and the application of a Fee.

 

 

 

This message is intended for the use of the addressee only and may
contain confidential or privileged information. If you have received it in
error please notify the sender and destroy it. You may not use it or copy
it to anyone else.

E-mail is not a secure communications medium. Please be aware of this
when replying. All communications sent to or from the County Council
may be subject to recording and/or monitoring in accordance with
relevant legislation.

Although East Sussex County Council has taken steps to ensure that this
e-mail and any attachments are virus free, we can take no responsibility
if a virus is actually present and you are advised to ensure that the
appropriate checks are made.

You can visit our website at http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.ico.org.uk/
3. mailto:[East Sussex County Council request email]
4. http://www.eastsussex.gov.uk/foi