employee capacity and capability variance

Summary

The request sought detailed staff appointment and departure records, total employee counts, and workload assessments for the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald. The authority refused to provide specific data, citing that some information is already publicly available in annual reports, some is exempt as personal data, and some regarding workloads is not held.

Key Facts

• Staff starters and leavers data is published annually in the Tynwald Annual Report.
• Detailed reasons for individual staff departures are withheld as personal information.
• Data for the period October 2019 to September 2020 is exempt as it is scheduled for future publication.
• The authority does not hold data on external expectations, internal workloads, or backlogs.
• Headcount information is also available in the Isle of Man Government Pink Book under 'Legislature (Parliament)'.

Data Disclosed

• 2020-05-05
• 2020-06-03
• October 2011 to September 2019
• October 2019 to September 2020
• 2011-12 to 2019-20

Exemptions Cited

• Section 20 (Information reasonably accessible)
• Section 39 (Personal information)
• Section 41 (Information for future publication)
• Section 11(3)(b) (Information not held)

Original Request

In the period covered by the Act, firstly please list roles appointed and departed by role, by grade, by date (or by month) and explanation such as replacement officer, additional officer, new post, early retirement, voluntary redundancy, compulsory redundancy, resignation or gardening leave, secondly indicate total employees at the beginning of the list and the end of the list and thirdly, irrespective of total employees and excluding the global pandemic, indicate if external expectations and internal workloads and backlogs have generally increased, remained the same or decreased.

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

Freedom of Information Co-Ordinator Office of the Clerk of Tynwald Legislative Buildings Douglas Isle of Man IM1 3PW Telephone: 01624 685500

Our ref: 1282345 1st June 2020 Dear ###

We write further to your request which was received on 5 May 2020 and which states:

"In the period covered by the Act, firstly please list roles appointed and departed by role, by grade, by date (or by month) and explanation such as replacement officer, additional officer, new post, early retirement, voluntary redundancy, compulsory redundancy, resignation or gardening leave, secondly indicate total employees at the beginning of the list and the end of the list and thirdly, irrespective of total employees and excluding the global pandemic, indicate if external expectations and internal workloads and backlogs have generally increased, remained the same or decreased."

Our aim is to provide information whenever possible. However, in this instance: • some of the information you have requested is available from http://www.tynwald.org.im/business/pp/ . While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under section 20 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you; • some of the information you have requested, if held, would be exempt because it would be personal information about other people; and • some of the information you have requested is not held. Staff Part one and part two of your request relate to staff. An annual summary of staff (starters and leavers) alongside the staff structure chart of the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald is printed annually in the Tynwald Annual Report. Copies of the Tynwald Annual Report are distributed to all libraries in the Isle of Man. The Tynwald Annual Reports from October 2011 to September 2019 are available on the Tynwald website.

• The Tynwald Annual reports can be found using the search term “Tynwald Annual Report” and the filter Parliamentary Report - http://www.tynwald.org.im/Pages/Search.aspx?=&s=All%20Sites&k=%22Tynwald%20 Annual%20Report%22&r=contenttypetynwald%3D%22Parliamentary%20Report%22 • To make this information easy to access I have created a view for you: http://www.tynwald.org.im/business/pp/Pages/tynannrpt.aspx The staff structure in the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald is included in the Tynwald Annual Report. Any staff changes are also described in a section entitled “The Office of the Clerk of Tynwald” alongside any publicly disclosable reason why a person has chosen to leave the office. Any further information we might hold about why individuals may have left the Office would be personal information and such would be covered by the qualified exemption in section 39 of the Act. We do not believe that the public interest in disclosing any such information outweighs the public interest in maintaining the exemption. The same information relating to the period October 2019 to September 2020 will be published in this year’s Tynwald Annual Report. Therefore, for the time period from October 2019 to the present we are applying section 41 of the Act, information for future publication, as a qualified exemption. When the Tynwald Annual Report 2019/20 is published we will post a printed copy to your address. Should you wish to look at headcount or staff costs, the Isle of Man Government Pink Book lists the headcount year on year for the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald. In the Pink Book, the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald information is listed as Legislature (Parliament). Each Pink Book is published on the Isle of Man Government Treasury website under the Budget of any particular year (2011-12 to 2019-20). This is a direct link to that page: https://www.gov.im/about-the-government/departments/the-treasury/budget/2019-20- budget/
Expectations, workload and backlogs With regard to the third part of your request, we do not hold data on external expectations and internal workloads and backlogs. As such we are applying section 11(3)(b) of the Act to this part of your request. Your right to request a review

If you are unhappy with this response to your freedom of information request, you may ask us to carry out an internal review of the response, by completing a complaint form and submitting it electronically or by delivery/post.

An electronic version of our complaint form can be found by going to our website at https://services.gov.im/freedom-of-information/Review . If you would like a paper version of our complaint form to be sent to you by post, please contact me and I will be happy to arrange for this. Your review request should explain why you are dissatisfied with this response, and should be made as soon as practicable. We will respond as soon as the review has been concluded.

If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for a decision on; 1. Whether we have responded to your request for information in accordance with Part 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015; or 2. Whether we are justified in refusing to give you the information requested.
In response to an application for review, the Information Commissioner may, at any time, attempt to resolve a matter by negotiation, conciliation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution and will have regard to any outcome of this in making any subsequent decision. More detailed information on your right to a review can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.inforights.im. Should you have any queries concerning this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Further information about freedom of information requests can be found at www.gov.im/foi.

I will now close your request as of this date.

Yours sincerely

FOI Co-ordinator