Thank you for your request for information about the following:

Request

‘I would now like to know under the FoI rules, how much is staff [redacted] being paid & who recruited [redacted]?’

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on 28 January 2026.

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our response

We have considered this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and we are issuing a refusal notice under section 17 of the FOIA.

We can confirm that we do hold the requested information, but this information is exempt under section 40(2) of the FOIA (personal information).

Section 40(2) is an absolute, prejudice-based exemption and therefore is exempt if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles. In order for disclosure to comply with the lawfulness, fairness, and transparency principle, we either need the consent of the data subjects or there must be a legitimate interest in disclosure. In addition, the disclosure must be necessary to meet the legitimate interest and finally, the disclosure must not cause unwarranted harm.

As we do not have the consent of the data subjects, the NHSBSA is therefore required to conduct a balancing exercise between legitimate interest of the applicant in disclosure against the rights and freedoms of the data subjects.

The NHSBSA acknowledges that you have a legitimate interest in disclosure of the information in order to provide the full picture of the requested data held by the NHSBSA; however, we have concluded that disclosure of the requested information would cause unwarranted harm and therefore, section 40(2) is engaged. This is because there is a reasonable expectation that staff data processed by the NHSBSA remains confidential.

Please see the following link to view the section 40 exemption in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/40