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11
May
‘No lawful basis’ to disclose identity of employee who received £322,000 payment, says council
North Yorkshire Council has defended its decision to decline to reveal the identity of a council worker who received a £322,000 redundancy payment.
According to the authority’s recently published accounts for 2023/24, the unnamed employee received the highest exit package made in the time period.
The Stray Ferret submitted a freedom of information request to the authority requesting the name of the employee and the position they held.
A council response said it held the information, but it was exempt from disclosure as to do so would breach one or more principles of the Data Protection Act 1998.
At the time, the authority said the role was a senior post and “there is no one else with the same job title in this case” and would breach one of the principles of the 1998 act.
It added:
In this case we consider that the disclosure would be unfair and none of the conditions for processing would be met.
The council previously told the Stray Ferret in a statement that the payment was for “contractual and statutory redundancy and pension entitlements under the employee’s contract”.
‘No lawful basis for disclosure’
As a result, the Stray Ferret requested an internal review of the decision as we felt that the public interest outweighed the reason for exemption and that the that the council had a duty to be transparent.
However, the authority has upheld its original reasons for refusing to disclose the information.
In a response, the council said:
North Yorkshire Council has concluded that the requested information constitutes personal data as the name and job role is about them and disclosure would identify the individual.
The individual’s job role is only applicable to one person and therefore to disclose this information would also identify the individual.
The authority added that it felt that there was “no lawful basis” for disclosure of the identity of the employee.
It added:
The exit amount package is published and is publicly available in the council’s 2023/24 statement of accounts.
The council believes that the information that has been published meets the legitimate interest of transparency over how public money is spent and therefore disclosure of the name and job role is not necessary to meet the legitimate interest.
Disclosure of the personal information relating to the individual would add nothing further to the legitimate interest. NYC concludes that there is no lawful basis for disclosure.
The Stray Ferret intends to take the decision to the Information Commissioner's Office, which regulates Freedom of Information and data protection. We believe that it is in the public interest for the council to be transparent about the use of taxpayers' money, in particular a sum of this size.
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