Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘Please could you kindly take a look at the following questions:

1. How many SARs (not other types of data protection requests) have been made to the authority in the last 12 months?

2. How many SAR requests have gone over a deadline (either the standard 30 day allocation or the extended 90 day allocation for more complicated responses)?

3. How many staff are usually contacted to provide data to contribute to the request?

4. On average how many hours are spent dealing with a SAR?

5. Do you have any software to assist with SAR production and if so, which?

6. Who has budget responsibility over the costs & resources required to respond to the SARs? Please provide’

Your request was received on 27 October 2022, and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

The below figures comprise completed requests only i.e. valid requests. Some requests involve writing to the requester for ID and/or clarification and not all of these progress to completion if the requester fails to provide that further information.

The figures cover the period October 2021 to September 2022 inclusive.

Question 1

420 Subject Access Requests (SARs) received.

Question 2

44 requests were responded to outside the 1-month deadline. Some requests were responded to on day 31 i.e. over the 30 days mentioned in your request. These were for requests received in months which have 31 days. These were not in breach of the 1 calendar month statutory target.

All requests which were subject to a 1-month extension were responded to within the extended deadline.

Question 3 and 4

I am writing to advise you that following a search of our paper and electronic records, I have established that the information you requested is not held by the NHS Business Services Authority

The number of colleagues/departments contacted to request collation of the requested will differ depending on the scope of the request.

The number of hours spent collating/preparing information is not recorded.

Question 5

The information governance team uses E-Redact to redact information, such as staff names, where appropriate.

Question 6

The budget holder for the Information Governance team, which processes SARs, is the Head of Security and Information Governance.

Data Queries

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing the data please contact nhsbsa.foirequests@nhs.net ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement:

“NHSBSA Copyright 2022” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.