FOI-2-22 

Date: 5 January 2022 

Summary:  

• Employee data, redundancy figures and agency staff data
• Contracted services and pay rates
• Subsidiary companies

Request: 

Please provide the number of staff (headcount) employed by the institution on a) 01/10/2020 and b) 01/10/2021, broken down into the following categories:

Academic and research staff  

Non-academic management   

Other staff 

Please do not include casual/sessional staff in the counts. 

Q1b. For each of spine points 3-30, please provide (a) the number of staff employed on 01/10/2021, (b) the number of these staff for whom this is the top spine point reachable by automatic incremental progression of the grade on which they are employed, i.e. the top non-discretionary spine point for the grade.   

Please do not include casual/sessional staff in the counts.

Q1c. How many staff (headcount), who are not managers, academics or research staff, were employed on zero-hours contracts (a contract under which the employer has no obligation to offer work and guarantees no minimum hours of work) on 01/10/2020 and on 01/10/2021? 

Q2. Please provide the number of staff (headcount) employed on a) 01/10/2020 and b) 01/10/2021 who are i) Male, ii) Female, iii) Black Minority and ethnic staff, iv) Disabled. Please do not include casual/sessional staff in the counts. 

Q3a. For those staff leaving due to redundancy between 01/10/2020 and 30/09/2021, please provide the number (headcount) taking a) compulsory redundancy, b) voluntary redundancy. If you cannot provide separate numbers for compulsory and voluntary redundancies, please provide the total numbers of redundancies.  Please do not include redundancies due to the end of fixed term contracts if it is possible to exclude them from the counts.

Q4a. Please provide the number of staff leaving due to redundancy between 01/10/2020 and 30/09/2021, within each of the following categories:-  

Academic and research staff   

Non-academic management   

Other staff 

Please do not include those staff leaving due to the ending of fixed term contracts in the counts. 

Q4b. Please provide the number of staff on fixed term contracts leaving due to redundancy between 01/10/2020and 30/09/2021, within each of the following categories:-

Academic and research staff  

Non-academic  management   

Other staff 

Please only include those staff leaving due to the ending of fixed term contracts in the counts. 

Q5. Please provide the number of staff leaving due to redundancy between 01/10/2020 and 30/09/2021, who are i) Male, ii) Female, iii) Black Minority and ethnic staff, iv) Disabled,  v) Aged 55 years or more

Please do not include those staff leaving due to the ending of fixed term contracts in the counts. 

Q6a. What is the minimum adult hourly rate of pay at the institution, including any regional pay supplement, excluding apprentice pay rates? (Hourly rate should be exclusive of holiday pay).

Q6b. What is the minimum adult hourly rate of pay for apprentices (if employed), including any regional pay supplement? (Hourly rate should be exclusive of holiday pay).

Q6c. How many hours a week is a full-time non-academic member of staff typically contracted to work, excluding unpaid breaks?

Q7. How many directly employed staff (headcount), excluding apprentices, are paid less than the Living Wage (£9.90 per hour outside Greater London and £11.05per hour in Greater London)?

Q8. How much money, including VAT, has been spent on employment agencies (hiring agency staff) during the financial year 2020/2021?

Q9a. Does the university contract out any services in the following areas? Please give the names of the companies to whom the services are currently contracted out.  When is the contract for the service up for renewal (if multiple contracts what is the earliest date)?

Q9b. Is a minimum rate of pay specified in the university’s contracts with external companies providing the following services? If so, what is the minimum rate of pay?

Q10. Please give the names of any wholly owned subsidiary companies of the university which currently provide any of the following services to the university in the UK:-

a. Cleaning, b. Catering, C. Security, d. IT services, e. Administration, f. Other support services. For each of the subsidiary companies identified, please indicate which of these services they provide to the university. 

Response:  

In accordance with Section 1(1)(a) of the FOIA, I can confirm that the University does hold the requested information in part, as some of the information, pertaining to the scope of the request, does not exist.  

Information pertaining to question 10 cannot be disclosed as it does not exist. This decision has been made after all reasonable steps have been taken to locate the requested information. Whilst I acknowledge that it is the principal object of the FOIA to provide public access to documents, I am satisfied that the requested information does not exist. 

I have decided to withhold part of the information, pertaining to the scope of the request, in accordance with Section 21 and Section 43(2) of the FOIA. 

Section 17 of the FOIA provides that: 

1. Refusal of Request 

• —(1) A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is to any extent relying on a claim that any provision of Part II relating to the duty to confirm or deny is relevant to the request or on a claim that information is exempt information must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice which—
• states that fact, 
• specifies the exemption in question, and 
• states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies. 

Section 21 

Section 21 of the FOI Act provides that:  

 21. Information accessible to applicant by other means

21. (1) Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 is exempt information. 

(2). For the purposes of subsection (1)-  

(a) Information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment; and  

(b) Information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.  

The FOIA gives rights of public access to information held by public authorities. The purpose of Section 21 of the FOIA is to ensure that there is no right of access to information via the FOIA/FOI process, if it already available to the applicant via another route.  

This exemption applies if the requested information is already accessible to you as the Applicant. This exemption is applied where it is either known that, you already hold the information, or it is available to you (with the information already being in the public domain).  

When the University is applying this exemption, it has a duty to confirm or deny whether it holds the information and where possible inform you of how you can access the information.  

Given that the information is available in the public domain, it is entirely reasonable and appropriate to withhold disclosure of the requested information pertaining to questions 6a and 6b, in accordance with Section 21 of the FOIA. The requested information can be found at the following: 

Question 6a, https://www.livingwage.org.uk  

Question 6b, https://www.gov.uk/apprenticeships-guide/pay-and-conditions  

Section 43 

Section 43 of the FOIA provides that:  

1. Commercial Interests 
2. (1) Information is exempt information if it constitutes a trade secret. 

(2) Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it)/  

(3) The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, compliance with section 1(1)(a) would, or would be likely to, prejudice the interests mentioned in subsection (2)

The FOI Act gives rights of public access to information held by public authorities. Section 43(1) of the FOIA provides an exemption for information which is a trade secret. Section 43(2) exempts information whose disclosure would, or would likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person/legal entity. This is often referred to as commercial sensitivity. 

A public authority may refuse to disclose information where such confirmation or denial of information would or would be likely to prejudice its commercial interests.  

The Section 43 exemptions are qualified exemptions, subject to the public interest test.  

Section 43(2)- Prejudice to commercial interests 

In order for such information, that is likely to prejudice the commercial interests, the University must show that because the information is considered to be commercially sensitive, disclosure would be, or would be likely to be, prejudicial to the commercial interests of the University. 

In order to apply section 43(2), the public authority must satisfy itself that disclosure of the information would, or would be likely to, prejudice or harm the commercial interests of any person (this can include the public authority holding it). This is known as the prejudice test.  

The term “would…prejudice” means that prejudice is more probable than not to occur (ie a more than a 50% chance of the disclosure causing the prejudice, even though it is not absolutely certain that it would do so).  

“Would be likely to prejudice” is a lower threshold. This means that there must be more than a hypothetical or remote possibility of prejudice occurring. There must be a real and significant risk of prejudice, even though the probability of prejudice occurring is less than 50%. 

The University must decide the likelihood of prejudice arising on the facts of each case.  

Establishing the appropriate level of likelihood is important as it has an effect on the balance of the public interest test.  

A Commercial Interest  

This relates to the University’s ability to participate competitively in a commercial activity/environment.  

In the case of University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) v IC and Professor Colquhoun EA/2009/0034, (8 December 2009), the Tribunal found that the selling of courses by UCLAN was a commercial activity which enabled it to remain solvent. The Tribunal considered that a body which depends on student fees to remain solvent has a commercial interest in maintaining the assets upon which the recruitment of students depends. These assets were the teaching materials UCLAN had produced for its degree courses. The Tribunal accepted that UCLAN was operating within a competitive environment where other institutions of higher education were also seeking to sell similar products (undergraduate degree courses) to potential students. The Tribunal therefore concluded that UCLAN’s interests in its teaching materials produced for its degree courses were commercial interests. 

Arguments in favour of disclosure  

It can be argued that in the interests of openness and transparency, which a public authority, like this University, should bear in mind the case for these principles when balancing any public interest argument.  

Also, the accountability for spending of public money, where the disclosure of commercial information can make a public authority (like this University) more accountable for how they spend their public money.  

Both of these arguments are outweighed by arguments in favour of maintaining the exemption under Section 43(2) of the FOIA.  

Arguments in favour of maintaining the exemption  

There is a public interest in allowing a public authority (such as this University) to withhold information which if disclosed (as is the case here), would reduce its ability to negotiate or compete in a commercial environment.  

In the case of Willem Visser v Information Commissioner EA/2011/0188, (1 March 2012) the complainant requested a copy of the approved business plan of the London Borough of Southwark Council with a third party company which delivered leisure services on its behalf. Part of the plan was withheld under section 43(2). The Commissioner's decision was that the Council was correct to apply section 43(2) and that the public interest supported maintaining the exemption in this instance. The Tribunal agreed. It found that even though the company in question was not-for-profit it operated in a competitive market. It noted that prejudicing the commercial interests of one player in the market would distort competition in that market, which in itself would not be in the public interest. As the Tribunal pointed out, in terms of the public interest test, there is therefore a public interest in protecting the commercial interests of individual companies and ensuring they are able to compete fairly: “If the commercial secrets of one of the players in the market were revealed then its competitive position would be eroded and the whole market would be less competitive with the result that the public benefit of having an efficient competitive market would be to some extent eroded”. 

The disclosure of information may cause unwarranted reputational damage to the University and/or another organisation whose information it holds, which may in turn damage its commercial interests through loss of trade, if for example, disclosure will show the minimum rate charged by external companies for services to the University, and enable competitors company to undercut them.  

Therefore information pertaining to question 9b has been withheld under Section 43(2).  

Please find the remaining requested information below: