Employee Assistance Programme (2021)
Request
A breakdown made by both House of Commons staff and MPs’ staff to the Employee Assistance Programme phone line, broken down by year and month, by whether they are House of Commons staff or MPs staff, and by the nature of the issue.
Response
Some information is held by the House of Commons in relation to your request.
During the period between April 2014 and October 2018, the House of Commons offered an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to MP’s staff only. We hold some information about the number of calls made during this time. No other breakdown or information about calls made to this service is held for this time period.
Whilst the House of Commons holds this information, it is also already available from a public source. This information is therefore exempt from disclosure in accordance with section 21(1) and (2)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), which removes a public authority from the obligation to provide access to information which is already in the public domain. This is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.
However, it may help you to know that information relevant to your request on calls made to the EAP helpline can be found on our FOI disclosures pages.
For the period between November 2017 and October 2018, no information is held about calls made to the EAP helpline.
From October 2018, the service was expanded to include staff of both the House of Commons and House of Lords Administrations, Members of the House of Commons, Peers and their staff.
Therefore, from the period between October 2018 and April 2021, we hold information about calls made by MP’s staff and by staff of the House of Commons Administration. This information is broken down between these two groups and by the nature of the call, but, due to the system of reporting in place, it is not broken down by month. Instead, each report from our supplier covers the preceding 12 month period. This information is attached to this response in spreadsheet format.
Calls made 2020 - 2021
Some figures in the spreadsheets have been redacted. This is because in some instances, owing to the low numbers of staff involved (fewer than 10) disclosing this data may make it possible for individuals to be identified. This information is therefore exempt by virtue of section 40 (2) FOIA, as disclosure of this information to the public generally, in the House’s view, would not be consistent with data protection principles in Article 5 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation. This is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.