Request
Please can I raise an FOI for a response to the following questions around expense and invoice, thanks.
‘Expenses
1. What finance system do you use?
2. What system do you use to manage and process your staff’s expenses?
3. What is the expense process?
4. How many expense claims were made in FY22/23? And what was total value of expense claimed in FY22/223?
5. Can you submit expenses remotely?
6. How are you claiming VAT on mileage? Do your staff have to deduct commute from mileage?
7. What percentage of expense claims are you auditing?
8. Which department is responsible for managing the expense process?
9. Do you have full autonomy for managing your organisation’s expense policy and process? If not, which organisation oversees this?
10. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have processing expense claims?
11. What is the average time to reimburse your staff’s expenses?
12. How are you reporting on expense spend, PSA expense types and scope 3 emissions reporting?
Invoices
1. What system do you use for managing/processing invoices?
2. What is your current invoice process for handling supplier invoices, from receipt to when it is posted in the ERP/finance system and ready for payment?
3. How many invoices were processed in FY22/23?
4. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have in your accounts payable team who process invoices?
5. What percentage of invoices were paid late in FY22/23?
6. Do you use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan invoices?
7. Do you have to manually validate the scanned invoices from the OCR capture?
8. Do you currently have a PO system or a non-PO system? If you use both types – what is the percentage of PO invoices vs. non-PO invoices?
9. Are you claiming VAT on invoices? If so, are you doing this in-house?
10. How are you currently reporting on invoice spend?
Note – If data is not available for FY22/23, please provide data for the last complete financial year on record’
Outcome
Some information provided
Response
Expenses
1. What finance system do you use?
This information is exempt under Section 31(1)(a).
2. What system do you use to manage and process your staff’s expenses?
This information is exempt under Section 31(1)(a).
3. What is the expense process?
Staff submit expense claims with evidence, line managers review this, and the payment is then made.
4. How many expense claims were made in FY22/23? And what was total value of expense claimed in FY22/223?
There were 247 expense claims made in FY22/23 totalling to £22,196.77. In addition to this, there were 115 car mileage claims totalling to £4,410.00. The car mileage claims relate to travel for business purposes. This totals to a value of £26,606.77 of expense claims altogether.
5. Can you submit expenses remotely?
Yes.
6. How are you claiming VAT on mileage? Do your staff have to deduct commute from mileage?
Employees are responsible for meeting the cost of travel from home to their usual workplace.
7. What percentage of expense claims are you auditing?
All claims must be reviewed by line managers.
8. Which department is responsible for managing the expense process?
HR and Finance.
9. Do you have full autonomy for managing your organisation’s expense policy and process? If not, which organisation oversees this?
Yes.
10. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have processing expense claims?
0.5.
11. What is the average time to reimburse your staff’s expenses?
We do not hold this information.
12. How are you reporting on expense spend, PSA expense types and scope 3 emissions reporting?
We report via a mixture of software systems and excel analysis/reporting.
Invoices
1. What system do you use for managing/processing invoices?
This information is exempt under Section 31(1)(a).
2. What is your current invoice process for handling supplier invoices, from receipt to when it is posted in the ERP/finance system and ready for payment?
Invoices are received into a group inbox and are manually entered onto the finance system via the PO number quoted.
3. How many invoices were processed in FY22/23?
Approximately 4,000.
4. How many FTEs (full time employees) do you have in your accounts payable team who process invoices?
1.5.
5. What percentage of invoices were paid late in FY22/23?
This information is exempt under Section 22 as this information is due to be published by the end of September 2023. You can find the percentage of invoices which were paid late for FY21/22 on our transparency pages transparency pages under ‘Public Contracts Regulations 2015 – Payment performance’.
6. Do you use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan invoices?
No.
7. Do you have to manually validate the scanned invoices from the OCR capture?
No.
8. Do you currently have a PO system or a non-PO system? If you use both types – what is the percentage of PO invoices vs. non-PO invoices?
PO system.
9. Are you claiming VAT on invoices? If so, are you doing this in-house?
Yes and Yes.
10. How are you currently reporting on invoice spend?
We report via a mixture of software systems and excel analysis/reporting.
Explanatory annexe
Exemptions applied
Section 22: Information intended for future publication
Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) exempts from release information intended for future publication if (a) the information is held by the public authority with a view to its publication, by the authority or any other person, at some future date (whether determined or not), or (b) the information was already held with a view to such publication at the time when the request for information was made, and or (c) it is reasonable in all the circumstances that the information should be withheld from disclosure until the date referred to in paragraph (a).
Section 22 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
We have considered whether it would be in the public interest for us to provide you with the information ahead of publication, despite the exemption being applicable. Please find below the reasoning for and against disclosure.
Arguments in favour of disclosure:
Disclosure of the requested information would demonstrate The National Archives’ commitment to being a transparent and accountable organisation and would increase public awareness of the work of the archives sector.
Releasing information at the current time would allow for contemporary discussion on the percentage of invoices which were paid late in FY22/23 and would consequently enable and enrich public debate.
Arguments against disclosure:
There are public interest arguments against disclosure of this information at the present time. These arguments include that it is in the public interest to adhere to the existing publication process for the percentage of invoices which were paid late in FY22/23, which includes time for the information to be gathered and properly verified before being placed in the public domain.
It is also in the public interest to ensure that the information is available to all members of the public at the same time, and premature publication could undermine the principle of making the information available to all at the same time through the official publication process.
On this occasion, we have concluded that the balance of the public interest test falls in favour of withholding this information.
Further guidance on the application of this exemption can be found at: https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1172/information-intended-for-future-publication-and-research-information-sections-22-and-22a-foi.pdf
Section 31: Law Enforcement
We are unable to provide you with information regarding which finance system we use, which system we use to manage and process TNA staff’s expenses and which system we use for managing/processing invoices because this information is exempt from disclosure under section 31(1) (a) of the FOI Act. Section 31(1) (a) exempts information if its disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime.
Section 31 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 FOI Act there is a presumption that information should be released unless there are compelling reasons to withhold it.
The public interest 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 31(1)(a) exemption. Considerations in favour of the release of the information included the principle that there is a public interest in transparency and accountability in disclosing information about our finance systems. However, release of this information would make The National Archives more vulnerable to crime. The crime in question here would be a malicious attack on The National Archives’ finance systems. As such release of this information would be seen to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime by making The National Archives’ finance systems more vulnerable to hacking. There is an overwhelming public interest in keeping The National Archives’ financial systems secure which would be served by non-disclosure. This would outweigh any benefits of release. It has therefore been decided that the balance of the public interest lies clearly in favour of withholding the material on this occasion.
Further guidance on section 31 can be found here: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/foi-eir-and-access-to-information/freedom-of-information-and-environmental-information-regulations/section-31-law-enforcement/