How should individual employee salaries listed on published list of payments and finance documents

Question

When it comes to transparency rules on publishing financial expenditures, how should individual employee salary -related payments to employees be listed on the published list of payments and finance documents? How is transparency achieved without publishing an employee number or name on a published list of payments that would breach their personal privacy rights?

Answer 1

You publish the total amount, so if you have 4 employees they are quoted as one, and you can include pension and PAYE payments. Salary’s are exempt from transparency rules (unless you are a sole employee when the figure shows on the AGAR even if you don’t publish monthly figures)

Answer 2

You do not need to list the employee name with each payment. Transparency is achieved separately by listing how many members of staff fall within each pay bracket and by giving the job description. Only people earning £150,000 or more should be named.

The Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 Schedule 1 sets out what information you should provide:

* the number of employees whose remuneration in that year was at least £50,000 in brackets of £5,000

* details of remuneration and job title of certain senior employees whose salary is at least £50,000, and

* employees whose salaries are £150,000 or more must also be identified by name.

The Local Government Transparency Code 2015 also confirms this, extends it slightly, and requires you to publish the information on a website (if this code applies to you).

Answer 3

A lot of local parish councils publish clerk salaries. More “do” than don’t actually.
It’s hardly a state secret - job advert generally lists SCP so what’s the big deal.
It is my opinion that a clerk being excessively  ‘precious’ about minor details such as this is generally a combat indicator of broader character deficiencies.

Comments

True though innit….. Job advert, pay policy statement, AGAR, budget meeting  to name but a few….  It’s already open source so why get a hairy shirt on about it?

Should be spending time and effort on more important issues….

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Doesn't work if you have more than one council employee... and if they were employed for many years the advert could not be used as a correct reflection...

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Yeah well, the fact remains, it ain’t a state secret and it is about time councils started aiming higher than “just about tolerable” and adopted a more open, engaging and proactive approach to the electorate they purport to serve.

Answer 4

Thanks for the responses. So, if salaries with corresponding staff names are published when they are not required to be, would that be a breach of privacy laws or gdpr etc?

Comments

Unless there is some law requiring you to publish personal information (such as the law that requires you to publish the names of staff earning over £150,000) then yes you would be breaching GDPR.