Request for information - Ref No: FOI231129
Request
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:
- Has the organisation used agencies to recruit temporary/contractor staff?
- If so please confirm the total agency spend on temporary/contractor staff?
- Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 2, splitting the spend by job title/specialism
- Has the organisation used agencies to recruit permanent staff?
- If so please confirm the total agency spend on permanent staff?
- Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 5, splitting the spend by job title/specialism
- The contact name of the person responsible for dealing with permanent recruitment?
- The contact name of the person responsible for dealing with temporary/contractor recruitment?
Our response
Taking each request in turn, I confirm the following:
1. Has the organisation used agencies to recruit temporary/contractor staff?
I confirm OS has used agencies to recruit temporary / contractor staff.
2. 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
3. Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 2, splitting the spend by job title/specialism
We are unable to provide a breakdown of the cost, please see the response to question 2 above.
4. Has the organisation used agencies to recruit permanent staff?
I confirm OS has used agencies to recruit permanent staff.
5. 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.
6. Please provide a breakdown of your answer to question 5, 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
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.
7. 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 website and can contact us via the careers contact form.
8. The contact name of the person responsible for dealing with temporary/contractor recruitment?
See response to question 7 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 two months of receipt of our final response to your Freedom of Information (FOI) request, as follows:
Internal Review Officer
Customer Service Centre
Ordnance Survey
Adanac Drive
Southampton
SO16 0AS
Please include the reference number above. You may request an internal review where you believe Ordnance Survey 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) under ‘Report a concern’ or you may wish to call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.