Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am requesting the following information:
1. The number of people maintaining the website legislation.gov.uk
2. A breakdown of the job titles of the people maintaining the website.
3. Without going into personal information, the salaries and all other benefits of the people maintaining the website.
On 15th November we asked for further clarification on your definition of ‘maintaining’, and on 19th November you provided the following: What I mean by maintaining the legislation.gov.uk website is all the people who keep the website up to date, adding new acts of Parliament, adding amendments and notes to existing acts, adding repealed acts, etc… I hope this explains what I meant by “maintaining”.
Outcome
Some information provided.
Response
1. The number of people maintaining the website legislation.gov.uk
There are 43 individuals who maintain legislation.gov.uk. 21 are employed by The National Archives. 8 are employed by our contractor TSO. 14 members of staff, employed by the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Welsh Government, use the editorial system to update legislation that is then published to legislation.gov.uk.
2. A breakdown of the job titles of the people maintaining the website.
Please see the attached Excel spreadsheet for the breakdown of the job titles and salary bands of people maintaining legislation.gov.uk. TNA holds information concerning the number of staff employed by the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Welsh Government but we do not hold information concerning their job titles, salaries or benefits.
The salaries and benefits of individuals employed by TSO are exempt at section 43 (2) of the FOI Act.
Information concerning the benefits for the staff at TNA is covered by section 21 of the FOI Act. This information can be found on our website: Our benefits and rewards – The National Archives
3. Without going into personal information, the salaries and all other benefits of the people maintaining the website.
Please see the answer to question 2 above.
Explanatory annexe
Exemptions applied
Section 21: Information readily available to the applicant by other means
Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) does not oblige a public authority to provide information if it is already reasonably accessible by other means. In this case the exemption applies because the information is already available on our website here: Our benefits and rewards – The National Archives
Further guidance on the application of this exemption can be found at: Section 21 – information already reasonably accessible | ICO
Section 43(2): Commercial Interests
This section exempts information whose disclosure would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person. In this case, the exemption applies because release would prejudice the commercial interests of both TSO and The National Archives.
Section 43(2) is a qualified exemption and we are required to conduct a public interest test when applying any qualified exemption. This means that after it has been decided that the exemption is engaged, the public interest in releasing the information must be considered. If the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in withholding it then the exemption does not apply and the information must be released. In the FOIA there is a presumption that information should be released unless there are compelling reasons to withhold it.
The public interest test has now been concluded and the balance of the public interest has been found to fall in favour of withholding information covered by the section 43(2) exemption.
Considerations in favour of the release of the information included The National Archives’ commitment to openness and transparency in its commercial activities, to allow public scrutiny and to demonstrate that public funds are being used in an efficient and effective way. Furthermore private sector companies engaging in commercial activities with the public sector must expect some information about those activities to be disclosed. In this instance, public spending on the maintenance of legislation.gov.uk.
Considerations against disclosure included the recognition that disclosure is likely to provide information to direct competitors within the market that would create an imbalance and a commercial advantage to those competitors. Furthermore disclosure of this information is also likely to affect The National Archives’ ability to negotiate contracts in the future and consequently generate revenue from non-public funds. It is also considered that disclosure would be likely to deter potential bidders for future contracts from competing and sharing commercially sensitive information with us.
As such, release of this information is seen to prejudice the commercial interests of both TSO and The National Archives. This would outweigh any benefits of release. It was therefore decided that the balance of the public interest lies clearly in favour of withholding the material on this occasion.
Further guidance on the application of this exemption cab be found here: Section 43 – Commercial interests | ICO