Details of staff employed by Ian Levy, MP

I can confirm that we hold information relevant to your request.

However, the names of individual members of MPs’ staff and salaries earned are personal data and are, therefore, subject to a refusal notice under FOIA s.40.

Further information about this exemption has been provided below.

Although we cannot disclose details about individuals, we do publish information about staffing in the MPs’ staffing and business costs section of our website.

You can use the A-Z list to search for specific MPs. You can also look at the page for Ian Levy, MP.

On the MP’s page, scroll down to ‘Other financial information’. Staffing costs are listed under ‘Other staff information’ where you will find a list of the job titles of staff working for the MP, whether they are on part-time or full-time contracts, and whether they have been employed for all or part of the year in question.

Salary bands and job descriptions for the various job roles for MPs’ staff are published on our website.

Sections 40(2) and 40(3A)(a) – personal data

This exemption applies to information which IPSA considers to be personal data within the meaning of Article 4(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (UK GDPR) which states:

‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly

IPSA considered that the following are personal data within this definition: salaries earned by individuals holding each job role and weekly hours worked by individuals in each job role.

We then considered whether disclosure of this personal data would breach any of the Principles relating to the processing of personal data in the UK GDPR. The relevant principle falls at Article 5(1)(a):

Personal data shall be:

a. Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject

As IPSA was unable to find a lawful basis on which it could rely, within Article 6 of the UK GDPR, it therefore finds that the information is exempt under section 40.