You asked
Please provide the following information:
1. Please provide full details of both the maximum and minimum distances that census officers have needed to travel for right to work checks throughout all regions (this should be available easily since all travel claims are made in connect with a reason for travel)
2. Please provide full details of both the maximum and minimum distances that census team leaders have needed to travel for right to work checks throughout all regions (this should be available easily since all travel claims are made in connect with a reason for travel)
3. As of today's date please provide the details of the costs of the HIGHEST (in ££) value of a census Team leaders expense claims for a return journey
4. As of today's date please provide the details of the costs of the HIGHEST (in ££) value of a census Area manager expense claims for a return journey
5. In Cornwall what is the maximum distance (in miles) of census officers from home address to area location/address
We said
Thank you for your request.
In order to ensure that we have fully answered your request, we would need to interrogate the relevant records individually to retrieve the information. There are roughly 20,000 individual records. This task would take approximately 10 minutes per employee which would amount to 3,300 hours to extract the information that we hold. This time estimate does not take into account the need to check and collate the information gathered.
The cost limit for replying to a Freedom of Information request is £600, which equates to 24 hours work, and in our view we would need to greatly exceed this in order to answer your request.
Furthermore, even if we were to do this, we would need to rely on the free text descriptions to specifically reference right to work checks. The purpose of the free text is to provide additional information to validate the claim. The purpose, such as right to work, is not essential. Therefore, we would need to engage in specific correspondence with all those for whom such reference details are not clear in order to collect further data. We are not required to hold this detail for the purpose of record keeping for our statutory records for internal reporting and HMRC reporting. Consequently, if we were to search for and disclose the information that we do hold regarding this, this would not provide full and accurate information.
We would therefore request that you consider limiting the scope of your request to allow us to respond within the cost limit.
As your request focuses on mileage data, both in distance and costs of reimbursements, we can provide mileage data by Census geographical area, role of claimant and vehicle category. We are also able to identify travel expenses by collectively bus, coach and ferry, or separately by train, and by air. Also associated charges such as parking which may form part of a claim but is a separate category. Those travel claims for mileage include distance and cost. For other forms of travel it is just cost. To note, distances quoted only relate to those travelled during the course of official business and for which a legitimate claim for reimbursement was made.