FOI/2025/26/313

I am writing with a Freedom of Information request regarding your trust’s use of recruitment agencies.

I would like to receive data on:

1.       The current number of executives, managers, and clinical staff employed by your trust (separately for each staff category)

2.       The number of executives, managers, and clinical staff hired by your trust using a recruitment agency in each of the last 5 fiscal years, separately for each staff group

3.       The annual staff turnover rate for each staff group over the last 5 fiscal years

Please see the following definitions to help you in processing this request:

·       Executives: Any members of top-level trust leadership, such as Chair, Chief Executive, Executive Directors (e.g., medical director, nursing director, finance director, Chief Operating Officer) responsible for overall strategy, quality, and governance.

·       Managers: Senior management, such as service or care group directors, heads of nursing, clinical directors, general managers, and heads of corporate departments, typically overseeing multiple departments or an entire division, as well as Middle managers and Frontline managers, such as matrons, ward or department managers, team leaders, and service managers who manage day-to-day operations and directly supervise clinical and non-clinical teams.

·       Clinical staff: Frontline clinical staff and support staff

Please let me know if there are any questions, and I look forward to your response.

Our response:

Having completed enquiries within CLCH, in respect of Sec1(1)(a) CLCH does hold information relating to your request, however, this information is published online. Therefore, for the purpose of section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), this part of our response serves as a formal notification of refusal of your request on the basis that exemption Section 21 of the FOIA applies.

Section 21 - Information Reasonably Accessible by Other Means

(1)Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 is exempt information.

(2)For the purposes of subsection (1)—

              (a)information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment, and

              (b)information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant 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.

Section 21 is an absolute exemption and where information falls within the scope of an absolute exemption, a public authority is not obliged to communicate it to an applicant and is also not obliged to comply with the duty to confirm or deny the existence of the information requested.

Having said that and in an effort to assist, please see the below in relation to your FOI request.

 

https://clch.nhs.uk/about-us/our-board

 

https://clch.nhs.uk/about-us/foi/foi-requests