The island’s Information Commissioner has ruled that Garff Commissioners was right to refuse to reveal how much its clerks have been paid.
While responding to an FoI request the local authority did provide salary bands, but refused to give specific figures noting that this was personal data and exempt.
Originally the authority refused to provide any information, but this was appealed by the person who submitted the FoI who argued that “the two Clerks are public facing and they, therefore, have no expectation of privacy with regard to the amount of salary they receive or their salklry [sic] scales.”
Bands
Garff did, after this initial appeal, release banded information related to the salaries, saying that “both clerks received remuneration during financial year 2022/2023 in the pay band of £40,000 to £50,000”.
It added that it was releasing the information to provide an “open and transparent indication of the cost of their [Clerks’] employment to the ratepayer whilst at the same time maintaining a balance with the need to protect the personal privacy of the two employees indicated in the FOI request”.
This decision was appealed to the Information Commissioner, Dr Alexandra Delaney-Bhattacharya, who ruled that Garff Commissioners “was justified in applying the exemption”.
Dr Delaney-Bhattacharya determined that the information is of a personal nature and should not be revealed.
She added: “The Commissioner notes that the salary bands of the clerks were released following the Applicant’s request for an internal review.
“The Commissioner would consider it best practice to proactively publish this information and considers that it is in the public interest for the salary bands to be shared.”
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