FOI ref: FOI/2022/4456
You asked
Please can your organisation provide in Excel CSV format, the following information:
a) The number of roles in your association (expressed in numbers of FTE), that are mainly or exclusively focussed on issues of equality, diversity, or inclusivity. For example, this could include (amongst other guises) "EDI officers" or "diversity and inclusion project managers" but would not include general HR managers.
b) Either a) the pay band of each of these roles, or b) the combined total salaries for these roles. Whichever measure is more in accordance with your data preferences.
c) In the past 12 months the number of staff days across your organisation which have been committed to attending equality training programmes, whether internally run or with external consultants. (staff days = duration of the training programme multiplied by the number of staff in attendance for the course).
d) The contractual cost of any consultants hired, in the past twelve months, to provide any external training or advice on issues of diversity, equality, or inclusivity.
e) In the past twelve months, the number of staff days committed to attending conferences relating mainly or exclusively to matters of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. (duration of conference multiplied by the number of staff in attendance).
f) The costs of attending these conferences.
g) Membership costs the organisation pays for participation in equality charters such as the Stonewall Equality Champions, or Diversity and Inclusion Workplace champions.
We said
Thank you for your request.
In order to search for, locate, extract and compile the requested information for questions C, E, and F, we would be required to interrogate the learning record of every member of staff in the organisation to locate instances of attendance to conferences or training courses regarding diversity and inclusion. We would also be required to check with the local business management teams of every business area in ONS, as learning is sometimes locally procured and therefore may not recorded in the centralised system. The search for this information would involve a wide range of search terms to ensure that all possible training falling into this category is located. For example, if we were to only use the terms 'diversity' and 'inclusion', this may not encompass specialist sessions focussed on one protected characteristic, so may not fully cover the requested material.
The cost limit for replying to a Freedom of Information request equates to 24 working hours and, in our view, the time taken to search for, locate, extract, and collate all the relevant material in scope of this request would exceed this threshold. Therefore, Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) is engaged, whereby a public authority is not obliged to answer a request if the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit.
We would advise resubmitting your request with a reduced scope in order for us to be able to answer this within the cost limit.
In order for us to provide you with a response within the cost limit, we would suggest limiting the scope of your request to include questions A, B, D, and G, as this removes the information that is more administratively burdensome to locate and extract.