The council will exclude from (omit) or redact (anonymise by deleting personal details) information concerning particular payments under a limited range of circumstance, in accordance with legal requirements and good practice. The circumstances in which this will apply are set out below.
| No. | Examples of transactions that may be excluded from publication | Reason | Redacted or excluded |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Salary payments to staff (including bonuses), except when published under the senior salary scheme. These will be published separately | Personal information protected by the Data Protection Act | Excluded |
| 2 | Pension contributions (excluding service charge) and National Insurance Contributions | Personal information protected by the Data Protection Act |
Excluded |
| 3 | Severance payments | Personal information protected by the Data Protection Act | Excluded |
| 4 | Payments to individuals from legal process - compensation payments, legal settlements, fraud payments | Personal information protected by the Data Protection Act | Redacted |
| 5 | Competition prizes – where a normal part of operations | Personal information protected by the Data Protection Act | Redacted |
| 6 | Settlements made with companies as an arbitration which is conditional on confidentiality | Commercial-in-confidence exempt under the Freedom of Information Act | Redacted |
| 7 | Potential betrayal of a commercial confidence, or prejudice to a legitimate commercial interest | Only where justified | Redacted |
| 8 | Transactions relating to the financing or underwriting of debt eg purchase of credit default swaps | Outside the definition of expenditure for this purpose | Excluded |
| 9 | Provisions or promises to pay not yet realised | Not yet realised | Excluded |
In addition, payments will be excluded or redacted (and responses to any enquiries will be constrained) where other statutory provisions apply, eg:
Exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act
Absolute exemptions:
- Information supplied by or relating to bodies dealing with security matters (s23)
- Court records (s32)
- Parliamentary privilege (s34)
- Prejudicial to effective conduct of public affairs (only information held by House of Commons or House of Lords) (s36)
- Personal Information (where the applicant is the subject of the information or where the information concerns a third party and disclosure would breach one of the data protection principles) (s40)
- Actionable breaches of confidence (s41)
- Where disclosure would breach another enactment or would constitute a contempt of court) (s44)
Qualified exemptions:
- Information held with a view to publication at a future date (s22)
- National security (s24)
- Defence (s26)
- International relations (s27)
- UK administrations relations (s28)
- UK economic interests (s29)
- Investigation of offences and criminal matters (s30)
- Law enforcement (s31)
- Audit functions (s33)
- Formulation of government policy, ministerial communications (s35)
- Prejudicial to effective conduct of public affairs (except information held by House of Commons/House of Lords) (s36)
- Communications with the Queen, the Royal Family or concerning honours (s37)
- Health and safety (s38)
- Environmental Information (s39)
- Personal Information (personal information about a third party the release of which would not be in breach of the Data Protection Act) (s40)
- Legal professional privilege (s42)
- Commercial interests (s43)
