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Non-Disclosure Agreements & Confidentiality Agreements

Reference: 23-24395

Date response sent: 26/01/2024

Details of enquiry

I am requesting the following under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act.  Between the years of 2019-2023:

  1. The total number of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) or Confidentiality Agreements (CA) per annum arranged with members of staff at your Trust;
  2. The total number of exit agreements (resignation, dismissals, retirement, etc.) per annum containing a NDA / CA;
  3. The number of safety concerns raised by staff at your Trust per annum during this time period;
  4. The number of safety concerns raised by staff at your Trust per annum which were resolved using a NDA / CA;
  5. The amount paid by your Trust for legal fees and fees for mediation companies regarding the setting up of NDAs / CAs;
  6. The total amount of money paid as lump sums (excluding any regular payments) per annum as part of these agreements (including or excluding safety concerns) as a numerical figure;
  7. The largest sum paid by a single exit agreement per annum by your Trust.

Response sent

  1. The total number of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) or Confidentiality Agreements (CA) per annum arranged with members of staff at your Trust;

None during the period 2019 to 2023

  1. The total number of exit agreements (resignation, dismissals, retirement, etc.) per annum containing a NDA / CA;

We have taken “exit agreements” to mean settlement agreements and accordingly provide the following numbers

2019 – ≥5

2020 – 0

2021 – ≥5

2022 – ≥5

2023 – ≥5

(please see explanatory notes 1 & 2 below)

  1. The number of safety concerns raised by staff at your Trust per annum during this time period;

≥5 (please see explanatory notes 1 & 2 below)

  1. The number of safety concerns raised by staff at your Trust per annum which were resolved using a NDA/CA

None

  1. The amount paid by your Trust for legal fees and fees for mediation companies regarding the setting up of NDAs / CAs;

Zero as we have not set up any standalone NDAs or Cas

  1. The total amount of money paid as lump sums (excluding any regular payments) per annum as part of these agreements (including or excluding safety concerns) as a numerical figure;

As in Question 2 above, We have taken “exit agreements” to mean settlement agreements and accordingly provide the following total figure £198,569.50

  1. The largest sum paid by a single exit agreement per annum by your Trust.

As in Question 2 above, We have taken “exit agreements” to mean settlement agreements.

As the numbers of these and accordingly provide the following total figure £72,931.04 (see explanatory note 2 below).

Explanatory Notes:

1         We have masked low numbers as the symbol ‘≤5’, which indicates where numbers are equal to 5 or less than 5. It is the NHS Digital standard not to provide data where the numbers are smaller than 5 as this may lead to identification of individuals. For this reason and in accordance with Section 40(2) and Section 40(3a) and Section 41(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, we have masked numbers under 6. Disclosure of this type of personal data or easily identifiable personal data would thus be unfair, breaching GDPR Principle (a): Lawfulness, fairness and transparency. As this is an absolute exemption, we do not have to apply the Public Interest Test when applying this exemption.

2         The Trust recognises a strong public interest in how the public purse is spent and must balance this against disclosure of small numbers and years in which complaints and payments were made, which, whilst not directly identifying individuals, would nevertheless give rise to a disclosure of personal data, as follows:

  • As we are a small Trust (circa 800 staff) there is a high chance of recognition/identification of particular individuals by colleagues or others from the low numbers, because it would be easy for those with inside knowledge to identify those who raised concerns and/or signed settlement agreements and deduce how much money individual staff received, by year.
  • This is not a just a question of considering the means reasonably likely to be used staff or the general public, but also the means likely to be used by a determined person with a particular reason to want to identify individuals from data in the public domain and/or gained from other sources.
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