Request for information - Ref No: FOI18870
Request
Thank you for your email of 6 November 2018 requesting information from Ordnance Survey in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000, as set out in the extract below:
"Freedom of Information Questions
1. Name of the unions signatory to your main collective agreement covering pay and conditions.
2. Please state the settlement date of your latest collective pay agreement.
3. Please state the employee groups covered by the pay agreement.
4. Please state the number of employees covered by the agreement.
5. Please provide a copy of your latest pay agreement.
6. Was the latest pay settlement under the remit of the 2018/19 Civil Service pay guidance?
7. Please list the current grades and pay rates together with the previous year’s grades and rates for the below roles or their equivalents:
a] Administrative Assistant (AA)
b] Administrative Officer (AO)
c] Executive Officer (EO)
d] Higher Executive Officer (HEO)
e] Senior Executive Officer (SEO)
f] Grade 6
g] Grade 7
8. Please give details of any individual performance-related increases paid in terms of the percentage of the paybill allocated to fund these awards and please state whether these were consolidated or non-consolidated.
9. Please state the overall paybill increase as a result of the 2018/19 pay settlement (including employer National Insurance and employer pension contributions).
10. Have any other changes been made to terms and conditions as part of the latest pay award?
11. Please provide the name and contact details of the person/s responsible for overseeing your organisation’s annual pay negotiations.
12. If an agreement has yet to be reached please state the month in which you anticipate 2018/19 pay increase will be paid."
Our response
I confirm that Ordnance Survey does hold some of the information you have requested. Where the information is not held or exempt from disclosure this is stated. Taking each request in turn, I confirm the following:
1. Name of the unions signatory to your main collective agreement covering pay and conditions.
The names of the unions signatories is held by Ordnance Survey 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 data subjects;
- 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.
2. Please state the settlement date of your latest collective pay agreement.
01 April 2015.
3. Please state the employee groups covered by the pay agreement.
All the employee groups are covered by the pay agreement, except for Ordnance Survey Executive Team.
4. Please state the number of employees covered by the agreement.
1000 employees (approximately).
5. Please provide a copy of your latest pay agreement.
I confirm that Ordnance Survey does hold a copy of the latest pay agreement. However, we are not providing a copy of the information, as we consider it to be exempt from disclosure under section 43 of the FOIA, as explained below.
Section 43(2) Prejudice to commercial Interests
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 pay agreement would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Ordnance Survey. The pay agreement provides details of our pay strategy which is used to recruit talent with a competitive salary and motivate existing employees in order to retain staff with the relevant skills. Releasing this information would provide our competitors with knowledge of our pay strategy therefore providing our competitors with an insight into how we recruit and retain our staff in terms of salary.
This is a qualified exemption and we are required to consider the public interest.
Public Interest Test
Ordnance Survey 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. Ordnance Survey considers that the prejudice would be likely to occur and would involve an adverse effect on Ordnance Survey’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 market place.
Having considered the above, we are satisfied that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
6. Was the latest pay settlement under the remit of the 2018/19 Civil Service pay guidance?
I confirm the latest pay settlement was not under the remit of the 2018/19 Civil Service pay guidance.
7. Please list the current grades and pay rates together with the previous year’s grades and rates for the below roles or their equivalents:
a] Administrative Assistant (AA)
b] Administrative Officer (AO)
c] Executive Officer (EO)
d] Higher Executive Officer (HEO)
e] Senior Executive Officer (SEO)
f] Grade 6
g] Grade 7
I confirm that Ordnance Survey does hold the information that you have requested, however, we are unable to comply with your request and provide a copy of the information, as we consider the information to be exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the FOIA (Information accessible by other means), as explained below.
A list of current grades and pay rates together with the previous year’s grades and rates for the equivalent roles described is accessible to you, as it was previously supplied to you in the recent upload by Ordnance Survey to XpertHR in September 2018. Section 21(2)(b) of the FOIA states that information is reasonably accessible 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." This means that section 21(2)(b) of the Act applies to your request.
This is an absolute exemption and therefore not subject to the public interest test.
8. Please give details of any individual performance-related increases paid in terms of the percentage of the paybill allocated to fund these awards and please state whether these were consolidated or non-consolidated.
I confirm that performance increases were consolidated and the rates paid for each performance rating are in the table blow:-
| Rating | % |
| 1 | 3.75% |
| 2 | 2.50% |
| 3 | 1.75% |
| 4 | 0.50% |
| 5 | 0.00% |
9. Please state the overall paybill increase as a result of the 2018/19 pay settlement (including employer National Insurance and employer pension contributions).
£1.5M
10. Have any other changes been made to terms and conditions as part of the latest pay award.
I confirm that no other changes to terms and conditions have been made as part of the latest pay award.
11. Please provide the name and contact details of the person/s responsible for overseeing your organisation’s annual pay negotiations.
Name: Hazel Hendley, HR Director (Acting)
Email: Hazel.hendley@os.uk
Telephone: (023 800 5520)
12. If an agreement has yet to be reached please state the month in which you anticipate 2018/19 pay increase will be paid.
I confirm the 2018/19 pay increase was paid in June 2018 and backdated to April 2018.
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.