You asked
I would like information regarding the design, creation, and implementation of the Health and Safety procedures and technology for the Census 2021 project.
I am specifically interested in whether the design and management teams are an appropriate representation of the entire workforce with regards gender and ethnicity.
I would like information on:
1) The percentage of male, female and non-binary employees and consultants (separately) involved in the design of the Lone Worker safety policies and procedures
2) The percentage split of ethnicities of employees and consultants (separately) involved in the design of the Lone Worker safety policies and procedures
3) The percentage of male, female and non-binary employees and consultants (separately) involved in the design, creation and testing of the Lone Worker technologies, specifically Total Mobile / Manger and Safe Hub
4) The percentage split of ethnicities of employees and consultants (separately) involved in the design, creation and testing of the Lone Worker technologies, specifically Total Mobile / Manger and Safe Hub
5) The tender process / procurement process for choosing the Safe Hub application as the most robust for this project.
6) The cost of the use of the Safe Hub app as a third party application
7) The tender process / procurement process for choosing the Total Mobile / Manager application as the most robust for this project
8) The cost of the design, creation and implementation of the Total Mobile / Manager software for the Census 2021 project
9) The percentage of male, female and non-binary employees currently employed in the Census 2021 Health and Safety Team
10) The percentage split of ethnicities of employees currently employed in the Census 2021 Health and Safety Team
10) The percentage of male, female and non-binary employees currently employed in Regional Management positions and above in the Census 2021 Project
11) The percentage split of ethnicities of employees currently employed in Regional Management positions and above in the Census 2021 Project
12) The percentage of male, female and non-binary employees currently employed below Regional Management level in the Census 2021 Project
13) The percentage split of ethnicities of employees currently employed below Regional Management level in the Census 2021 Project
14) The start date for the design and creation of the current Lone Worker safety policies and procedures
15) The completion date for the current Lone Worker safety policies and procedures, with the inclusion of on project updates as additional
16) The additional cost involved in running the project during the COVID-19 pandemic
We said
Thank you for your request.
In order to ensure that we have fully answered your request, we would need to establish who was involved in the design and testing of the lone worker system, including consultants. This would involve going back through all the documentation related to the lone work solutions, including all meeting minutes and decision logs in order to extract this information. Furthermore, as this request does not have a timescale, we would need to go back through information spanning several years. However, to provide general assurance on those arrangements - the lone working service and standard implemented for Census 2021 complies with BS 8484, which is the industry standard for the provision of lone working device services. The standard acts as a benchmark in the field of lone working services; to ensure the best possible protection and safety and meet the duty of care to our employees. Importantly, it uses Police URNs to enable the highest level of response to Census field workers should that be required and therefore forms a key part of the general lone working arrangements that have been implemented for Census 2021.
In addition, we will need to factor in the work required by our Human Resources department and our Commercial team to search for and compile the wider information being requested, we therefore believe the cost limit for responding to FOI requests will be breached. The cost limit for replying to a Freedom of Information request is £600 or 24 hours work, and in our view we would need to greatly exceed this in order to answer your request.
We would therefore request that you consider limiting the scope of your request to allow us to respond within the cost limit.
It would be helpful to introduce a narrower time-frame as well as limiting the scope to current employees only. Please be advised, we would be unable to disclose any information that could identify an individual.