Dear FOI Kid,
I forward this email to you as
an insight into the ICO's own handling of FOI requests it receives for
potentially embarrassing information.
Full disclosure of my interest
in the matter:
I am unionised member of staff
at the ICO about to be on strike about poor pay increases in the context of
significant executive pay increases. The union (PCS) made a request for
information about the stated "extra duties" justifying extra pay,
which the ICO mishandled (first failing to respond, then failing to find
information until internal review).
The upshot is that the ICO Data
Protection conference may take place during a strike by over half its staff.
I hope the emails are informative
about the ICO's ability to comply with its own legislation.
Kind
regards,
[name redacted]
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From: [name and email redacted]>
Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 12:44 PM
Subject: FW: PCS: Information about Executive Team pay increases
To: [name and email redacted]
From: [name redacted]
Sent: 19 February 2015 11:10
Subject: PCS: Information about Executive Team pay increases
Dear members
Please see below for the internal review response
PCS has received regarding our requests for information about the Executive
Team (ET) pay increases of 8-18% (average 11%). The information
disclosed to PCS is attached.
The information speaks for itself, but PCS notes
the following:
· The correspondence between the Commissioner and the Ministry of Justice
(MOJ) in June/July 2014 demonstrates the Commissioner was able to hand these
huge increases to ET members with only minor, informal queries being raised
by the MOJ. Meanwhile, PCS members are told there is no room for manoeuvre
with the MOJ or Treasury when it comes to our pay.
· No additional duties were given to the Deputy Commissioners to justify
their increases of 8.5% and 18.5% respectively. Graham Smith explicitly
confirms this in one email. The explanations the Commissioner provided to the
MOJ about the ‘additional responsibilities’ largely relate to the ICO’s
general organisational duties and tasks which are actually performed by
ordinary staff and PCS members, rather than the Deputy Commissioners
themselves.
· The Commissioner refers to the effects of the two year pay freeze and
further two year 1% pay cap when explaining why he considers it necessary to
increase David Smith’s pay by 18.5%. All staff have had their pay frozen and
capped in the same way.
· When the Commissioner informed the MOJ of the changes to the Level H
salary range (from £52-85k to £70-100k), he said: “This is for negotiation
with the recognised unions as part of the pay architecture debate”. However,
in reality he did not negotiate, the changes were made secretly, and he only
informed PCS after the event. He has since refused to discuss this change
with unions and has claimed all responsibility for determining ET pay lies
with the Remuneration Committee only.
· The day after PCS had announced a car park meeting to coincide with
the visit of Simon Hughes MP in September, the Commissioner wrote to Mr
Hughes to offer a “heads up” on the ET pay rises.
· In response to request 2 for details of the additional
responsibilities for the Deputy Commissioners, the only information held is a
series of internal exchanges discussing how to explain the pay rises to staff
and PCS.
Timeline of the request
PCS first requested this information on 5
November 2014 and it has taken until now for it to be disclosed. The
Commissioner responded to PCS twice without providing any recorded
information, and the information was only disclosed at the internal review
stage. Please see below for details.
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PCS
request for information
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Details
of the ‘appropriate agreement’ from MoJ relating to the original ICO pay
remit; and precise details of the alleged additional responsibilities of
the Deputy Commissioners
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20/11/2014
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ICO
(Christopher Graham) refusal notice #1
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“I
have nothing to add to my earlier replies at this stage, but I expect to
answer questions on this at my two Town Hall meetings next week”
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15/12/2014
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PCS
FOI complaint to ICO about defective response
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Complaint
still under investigation
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15/1/2015
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PCS
chaser
|
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21/1/2015
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ICO
(Christopher Graham) refusal notice #2
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“No
information held”
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21/1/2015
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PCS
request for internal review
|
|
18/2/2015
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ICO
internal review response
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Lots
of information held
|
Regards
[PCS officer name redacted]
FOI request - response to internal review
Sent: 18
February 2015 16:57
To: [name redacted]
Subject: Internal review of FOI request of 05 November 2014
Dear [name redacted]
Your request for an internal review of the
handling of your information requests of 05 November 2014 has been passed to
me to undertake. I have carefully considered all the relevant
information, including your requests, and the comments you made when you
asked for an internal review. I have reached the following findings.
Request 1
Please provide us with details of the ‘appropriate
agreement’ from MoJ relating to the original ICO pay remit, including: the
ICO’s case put to MoJ for significant increase to ET pay; the rationale for
MoJ accepting; a copy of any recorded information relating to the issue.
The ICO’s response of 21 January 2015 stated that
there was no recorded information held in relation to this request. Having
considered your comments, and the context in which the request was made, I
have taken the reference to the ‘appropriate agreement’ to be wider than just
any formal agreement to the ET pay increases received from the MoJ, and to
include any recorded information by which the MoJ was kept in the picture on
this matter. On this basis I have identified the following recorded
information that falls within the scope of your request:
- An email chain between the Information Commissioner, Christopher
Graham, and Simon James, Deputy Director Information Rights and
Devolution at the MoJ.
- An extract of an email from the Information Commissioner,
Christopher Graham, briefing Rt Hon Simon Hughes, Minister of State for
Justice
The majority of the information above has been
disclosed (please see attached). However some information has been withheld
under section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I have given
the reasons for my decision below.
The emails between Christopher Graham and Simon
James include details of; the new salaries of the Deputy Chief Executive
Officer and the two Deputy Commissioners of the ICO, the percentage pay rises
they were each awarded in July 2014, and the pre-rise salaries of the two
Deputy Commissioners, which is the personal data of these data subjects. This
information has been disclosed to you because I found that to do so would be
fair to the data subjects and would not contravene any of the data protection
principles. In reaching this decision I considered whether the disclosure was
necessary to meet the legitimate interests of the public, in understanding
the justification for the 2014 pay rises and the circumstances in which they
were awarded, in the context of the pay cap on public sector increases set by
the Government. I found that it was. I considered whether the legitimate
interests of the public could be met in a way which was less prejudicial to
the rights freedoms or legitimate interests of the data subjects, but found
that it could not, and that therefore the prejudice to the rights, freedoms
or legitimate interests of the data subjects related to this disclosure was
warranted.
This email chain also reveals the exact salaries
of the two Deputy Commissioners prior to the pre-rise figure that has been
disclosed, and dating back to 2006, together with the percentage rises they
received in this period. Again this is the personal data of the Deputy
Commissioners. I considered that it would be unfair to the data subjects to
disclose this historic exact salary information and that this would therefore
contravene the first data protection principle. In reaching this conclusion I
considered whether the disclosure of this historic salary information was
necessary to meet the legitimate interests of the public in understanding the
justification for the 2014 pay rises and the circumstances in which they were
awarded, and found that it was not. I considered that the public could
understand the reasons behind the 2014 pay rises without needing to know
historic exact salary levels dating back to 2006 and that therefore the
prejudice to the rights, freedoms or legitimate interests of the data
subjects that would be caused by disclosing this information would not be
warranted. I have therefore withheld this information under section 40(2) of
FOIA by virtue of section 40(3)(a)(i).
The information that has been redacted from the
email briefing Simon Hughes has been removed as it is outside the scope of
your request, not because it is considered to be exempt information.
Request 2
Please provide precise details of the alleged
additional responsibilities of the Deputy Commissioners
The ICO’s response of 21 January 2015 stated that
there was no recorded information held by the ICO in relation to this
request. Having considered your comments and the context in which the request
was made I have considered your request to cover any recorded information
about the additional duties of the Deputy Commissioners as referenced in the
Commissioner’s letter to the PCS of 01 October 2014. I have identified the
following recorded information that falls within the scope of your request:
- Parts of the email chain between Christopher Graham, and Simon
James provided in response to Request 1
- The extract from the email from Christopher Graham, briefing Rt
Hon Simon Hughes, provided in response to Request 1
· An extract from an email from Christopher Graham to members of the
Remuneration Committee, dated 26 June 2014
- An extract from an email from Christopher Graham to David Smith,
dated 27 June 2014
- An extract from a Commissioner’s blog, placed on the ICO intranet
on 07 July 2014
· An extract from an email from Christopher Graham to ET members, dated
06 September 2014
- An email from Graham Smith to Christopher Graham, dated 08
September 2014
- An extract from a Commissioner’s blog, placed on the ICO intranet
on 08 September 2014
- An extract from an email from Graham Smith to Christopher Graham,
dated 18 September 2014
- An extract from an email from Christopher Graham to the Executive
Team of the ICO, dated 29 September 2014
- An extract from an email from Christopher Graham to the
Leadership Group of the ICO, dated 01 October 2014
- An extract from a letter from Christopher Graham to the PCS,
dated 01 October 2014
All this information has been disclosed to you
(see attached). No information falling within the scope of this request has
been withheld as exempt.
In identifying the information held by the ICO in
relation to this request I can confirm that I reviewed all the possible
repositories of information that you suggested when you requested your
internal review.
If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of the
review you may make a section 50 complaint to the ICO.
How to complain
Information on how to complain is available on the ICO website at:
[2]http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/freedom...
By post: If your supporting evidence is in hard copy, you can fill in the
Word version of our complaint form, print it out and post it to us with your
supporting evidence. A printable Freedom of Information Act complaints form
is available from the ICO website. Please send to:
Case Reception Unit
First Contact Team
Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF
By email: If all your supporting evidence is available electronically, you
can fill in our online complaint form. Important: information included in the
form, and any supporting evidence will be sent to us by email.
Yours sincerely
____________________________________________________________________
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