FOI/25/415

Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would be grateful if you could provide the following information for the 2023/24 financial year:

1. The total spend by the Trust on:
   • Locum staffing
   • Agency staffing
2. A breakdown of the above spend by clinical specialty (e.g. General Medicine, Surgery, Emergency Medicine, etc.).
3. The names of agencies the Trust used for locum or agency staffing, along with the total amount paid to each agency during that year.
4. The name or role of the individual(s) or department responsible for signing off agency or locum staffing contracts.

 

Response

1. The overall Agency Spend for 2023/2024 financial year for Nursing and Doctors was: £7.8M
2. As Above.
3. Section 43 Applied, see details below
4. Agency side of bookings is management by Litmus Temporary Staffing, however each agency booking is approved by the trust.

 

Section 43 Response

 

Section 43 – Commercial Interest

Section 43(2) exempts information whose disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (an individual, a company, the public authority itself or any other legal entity). Disclosure of the requested information could prejudice pending or future negotiations the CLCH may be subject to.

 

This is a qualified exemption under the FOIA, which means that consideration must also be given to whether in all the circumstances of the case the public interest favouring disclosure is greater than the public interest in maintaining the exemption. The public interest means what is in the best interests of the public not what is of interest to the public.

 

Factors in favour of discloser:  

Factors in favour of non-disclosure: 

• Disclosing the [Question 2] would undermine our competitive position in the marketplace. 
• Disclosing the [Question 2] would compromise the commercial activities of CLCH, as it would compromise its ability to negotiate competitive future deals.
• Disclosure of the [Question 2], is likely to lead to reputational and financial damage which would affect future investments and have a knock-on effect to the money raised for the health economy.

 

Having considered the above, we maintain that the factors in favour of upholding the exemption outweigh the factors in favour of disclosure. Therefore, the balance of the public interest test is greater in maintaining the exemption available under section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.