· continued
Page 3 of 3
Our ref: FOI-16-085
Ms Caroline Allan
Email:
6 July 2015
Dear Ms Allan
Information Request: FOI-16-085
……please provide details of amounts of remuneration entered on Forms P60 for employees who were paid in excess of £10,000 per year in each of the tax years ended 5 April 2010, 5 April 2011, 5 April 2012, 5 April 2013 and 5 April 2014. This is not required to give any personal information and is being sought in an anonymised format.
In addition, did employees receive any Benefits in Kind and if so, what were these? What values etc. were attributed to them for tax purposes?
I refer to your information request above received in our office on 8 June 2015.
I have reviewed your request and investigated whether there is any information disclosable to you.
Unfortunately, the council is not able to give you the information requested because it considers that details of the exact salaries from P60 forms of employees is personal data and therefore exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as detailed below. Also, to disclose this information would breach the first principle of the Data Protection Act 1998.
“40. (2) Any information to which a request for information relates is also
exempt information if –
(a) it constitutes personal data which do not fall within
subsection (1), and
(b) either the first or the second condition below is satisfied.
(3) The first condition is –
(a) in a case where the information falls within any of
paragraphs (a) to (d) of the definition of “data” in section
1(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998, that the disclosure
of the information to a member of the public otherwise
than under this Act would contravene –
(i) any of the data protection principles, or
(ii) section 10 of that Act (right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress), and
(b) in any other case, that the disclosure of the information
to a member of the public otherwise than under this Act
would contravene any of the data protection principles if
the exemptions in section 33A(1) of the Data Protection
Act 1998 (which relate to manual data held by public
authorities) were disregarded.”
Although, you have requested the information in an anonymised format, the council believes that, due to the small number of staff involved, individuals could be identified even though their names or job titles are not being requested e.g. it would be obvious that the highest figure is for the Executive Director and the next highest were managerial posts.
However, in line with the disclosure of salaries guidance produced by the Information Commissioner’s Office, we are able to provide numbers of staff per each salary banding (of £5k) starting at £10,000. Therefore, we have provided salary bandings as per the P60s. Please see table below.
P60 Taxable Pay Bands£ / 2009/2010 / 2010/2011 / 2011/2012 / 2012/2013 / 2013/2014
10000 - 14999 / 4 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 10
15000 - 19999 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 5 / 5
20000 - 24999 / 2 / 4 / 3 / 4 / 2
25000 - 29999 / 5 / 4 / 4 / 2 / 1
30000 - 34999 / - / - / - / 1 / -
35000 - 39999 / 1 / 1 / 1 / - / -
55000 - 59999 / - / - / - / - / 1
Only one member of staff at Towner had taxable benefits (Benefits in Kind) reported to HMRC (on P11d) for the tax years ended 5 April 2010, 5 April 2011, 5 April 2012 and 5 April 2013; all were in relation to mileage allowances.
Taxable Benefits reported on P11d for Towner staff2009/2010 / 2010/2011 / 2011/2012 / 2012/2013
£1,170.00 / £1,239.00 / £1,250.00 / £965.00
I trust that this deals with your enquiry to your satisfaction, but if you feel that Eastbourne Borough Council has misunderstood or not responded appropriately to your request, you have two courses of action:
· You can clarify the terms of your original request to allow this to be looked at again (if you expand your request this will be dealt with as a new request)
· All applicants have a 'right of appeal'. An appeal should be focused on the original request and should identify how the council’s response failed to answer your information request. Appeals must be made in writing (or e-mail) within 40 working days of receipt of this response and addressed to Complaints at the address overleaf:
Complaints
Eastbourne Borough Council
1 Grove Road
EASTBOURNE
BN21 4TW
Email:
After the council’s internal appeals procedure has been exhausted, a further appeal about the same information request can be directed to the Information Commissioner for adjudication. Full details will be provided should an appeal proceed to this stage.
Please note:
If you are considering re-using the information disclosed to you through this request, for any purpose outside of what could be considered for personal use, you are required under the Public Sector Re-use of Information Regulations 2005 to make an Application for Re-use to the organisation you have requested the information from. Applications for Re-Use should be directed to the address detailed in the footer below.
Please contact me again, quoting your reference number, if you require any further assistance with your current request and I will do my best to provide the relevant help and advice.
Yours sincerely
Denise White
Information Governance Officer