Please could you provide the following:
1) A copy of your Human Resources Manual. Human Resources have a plethora of policies for employees. Please supply a copy of these policies commonly referred to as the HR manual.
Devon County Council does not hold this information as we do not have a human resources manual. Devon County Council does hold individual human resources policies, however we are not able to provide them for the reason set out below.
We consider the information regarding Devon County Council human resources policies and associated guidance to be exempt from disclosure under Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Commercial Interests).
Devon County Council can confirm the information relating to human resources policies is held; however, their disclosure would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the Council.
This is because the Council operates a commercial service to many schools to purchase human resources policies. Disclosure of the policies would release them into the public domain and there is a high likelihood of harm to this intellectual property of the Council in doing so. The Council may see a reduction in requests for this paid for services if the policies are already freely available in the public domain. This could result in a loss of income to the Council.
The Council has considered the public interest in releasing this information and recognises there is a public interest in openness and transparency regarding how the Council operates.
However, there is a stronger public interest in ensuring the Council is able to retain the confidentiality of the intellectual property that is offered as a paid for service and are able to continue to charge schools for this service as required and protect the commercial income of the Council.
Therefore, the balance of public interest weighs in favour of withholding this information from disclosure.
2) Please also provide policies around supervision for social workers
Please see the Adult Social Care Practice Supervision Guidance for adult social services.
Please see the Supervision Policy and Procedure for children’s social services.
Some of the names in the Adult Social Care Practise Supervision Guidance have been greyed out. This information is exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (Personal Data).
Devon County Council can confirm the requested information is held; however, the Council cannot disclose personal information if releasing it would contravene any of the provisions in the Data Protection Act 2018. In this instance release of this information would contravene the first data protection principle and therefore the information is withheld
3) A supervision contract which supports a supervision policy for social workers
Please see the Practice Supervision Agreement for adult social services.
Please see the Restorative Supervision Agreement Version for children’s social services.