Workplace Racism/Racial Discrimination

Reference: 23-24444

Date response sent: 05/04/2024

Details of enquiry

1. The number of allegations of workplace racism reported by present and former staff. Please provide the figures for the following calendar years: 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020

i.e. in 2020, 20 allegations of workplace racism were made by past and present staff

2. The number of allegations of workplace racism reported by present and former staff which resulted in disciplinary action. Please provide the figures for the following calendar years: 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020

i.e. in 2020, 20 allegations of workplace racism were made by past and present staff, 11 complaints resulted in disciplinary actions

3. In instances when compensation payments were made to former and present staff following allegations of racism/ racial discrimination, please provide the figures for the following calendar years: 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020

i.e. in 2020, 20 allegations of workplace racism were made by past and present staff, 11 complaints resulted in disciplinary action and in four instances the complaint was escalated to an employment tribunal, two compensation payments were paid amounting to £12,000

Please note: By workplace racism – I mean allegations made by past or present staff relating to other staff members – rather than racism incidents involving members of the public against NHS staff

Please note: if for data protection reasons you are unable to provide the figures broken down by year, please collate the figures over the four year period.

i.e. between 1st January 2020 and 31st December 2023, the trust recorded in total 10 instances of racially motivated workplace harassment. Within that period, 5 complaints resulted in disciplinary action and 0 compensation payments were paid out.

If you believe the contents of any such files are exempt from disclosure, please provide summaries of any such exempt files.

If this request is denied in whole or in part, I ask that you justify all deletions and exemptions by reference to specific exemptions under the Act

Response sent

As our response involves low numbers, ‘equal to or less than 5’, we have collated the requested data over the whole four year period, as offered in your request, and provided single sets of figures for each question for the period January 202 to December 2023. This has still resulted in low numbers ‘equal to or less than 5’ and, have therefore applied the NHS Digital standard not to provide these exact numbers as this may lead to identification of individuals.

This is in accordance with Section 40(2) and Section 40(3a) and Section 41(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is an absolute exemption, and we do not have to apply the Public Interest Test because disclosure of this type of personal data or easily identifiable personal data would thus be unfair, breaching GDPR Principle (a): Lawfulness, fairness and transparency.

The Trust recognises that whilst disclosure would not directly identify individuals, it would nevertheless give rise to an indirect disclosure of personal data, under the following circumstances:

Where individuals who raised one or more complaints would be able to identify themselves from the low numbers and deduce the numbers and identities of other colleague/s known to have raised such complaints.
Being a small Trust (circa 700 staff), with statistically low numbers of complaints, and settlements paid out, there is a high chance that colleagues with inside knowledge, would deduce/recognize particular individuals and identify the level of settlement payments made to them.
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.

1. The number of allegations of workplace racism reported by present and former staff. Please provide the figures for the following calendar years: 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020

There were ≤5 cases reported over the four year period.

Nil Cases of disciplinary action over the four year period

Nil Compensation payments were paid out over the four year period.