Thank you for your request for information about the following:

‘Please advise:

1. How many staff (as measured by full-time equivalents) do you employ to work on communications? Please include all internal and external communications including work on your website, media queries and social media.

2. What was your communication spending for the financial year 2021/22 and what is the budget for the current communications spending in the current financial year?

3. How many staff (as measured by full-time equivalents) do you employ to work on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)?

4. What was your spending on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) for the financial year 2021/22 and what is the budget for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the current financial year?

5. What was your spending on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) training for the financial year 2021/22 and what is the budget for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training in the current financial year?

6. How many staff working days do you estimate were lost from regular work due to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) training for the financial year 2021/22 and what is your estimate of staff working days that will be lost from regular work due to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training during the current financial year?’ On 3 January 2023 you clarified your request as follows:

‘Thanks. Please include staff costs.’

Your clarified request was received on 3 January 2023, and I am dealing with it under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Response

Question 1

30.6FTE for 22/23. Please note that maintenance of our website is not the responsibility of our communications team so is not included in this figure. We have 5 internal staff who support our website infrastructure and publishing platform. We also use external agencies for hosting support.

Question 2

Spend for 21/22 was £1.219m and budget for 22/23 is £1.550m.

Question 3

1x 0.33% Full-Time Equivalent (FTE).

Question 4 and 5

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.

We fund any costs associated with equality, diversity and inclusion work from a wider budget which covers a range of employee focussed strategies and plans, and we integrate our approach to diversity and inclusion into many other strategies and plans. As such it is difficult to be able to identify spend exclusively on diversity and inclusion in isolation, however we estimate the spend to be approximately £18,000 for the financial year 2021/22 and £6,000 for the financial year 2022/23.

In relation to spend on training, we estimate this to be £1,200 for the financial year 2021/22 and £800 for the financial year 2022/23. Both totals form part of the overall spend given in response to question 4 above.

Question 6

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. An estimate involves creating new information, however we are able to provide that estimate as being 0.03% of staff time

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 2023” 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.