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Warwick Vice-Chancellor Flight Costs


Summary
After nearly two months of delays and having to involve the Information Commissioner's Office, the University of Warwick has recently revealed that Nigel Thrift spent more than £54,800 on airfare in the last academic year, on 12 international trips. "Due to the amount of travel that the Vice-Chancellor is required to undertake and that he is required to work while he travels, the University permits the Vice-Chancellor to travel business class."

Below is the full response to a FOI request that I recently submitted for information about travel reimbursements for the controversial Vice Chancellor. While the University declined to provide copies of his Form FP16a claims ("Under the Freedom of Information Act, requesters are entitled to the information not the document in which the information is held"), the amounts from such claims listed in Table 1 likely represent only a small part of Thrift's total travel reimbursements, since he is entitled to a University-funded credit card for hotel bookings, meals, and other expenses incurred overseas.

Regardless, the £54,841.08 in airfare is an exceptionally excessive spend. It is unclear if this amount reflects entirely business class tickets, or if some of the travel was first class. I am currently awaiting clarification on the class of these tickets. To see the entire e-mail conversation, including how I had to involve the Information Commissioner to receive this information, see the conversation log for this FOI request.

Documents
(These document downloads require Adobe Acrobat Reader or any PDF viewer.)

Thrift Flight Details During Academic Year 2013-14
      Table2.docx             Table2.pdf      
Flights for 12 international trips total £54,841.08



On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Resource infocompliance (infocompliance@warwick.ac.uk) wrote (FOI Request):

Dear Mr Hermes,

Thank you for your email dated 2nd December 2014 requesting information about the University of Warwick, we apologise for the delay in responding to your request. Your request is being considered under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please find below your original request and our response.

I respectfully request the following information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act:

1. Copies of Form FP16a for every claim for travelling and subsistence (including Details of Travelling and Subsistence Expenses Incurred) submitted by Professor Nigel Thrift during the year ended 31 July 2014 (spanning from 1 Aug 2013 to 31 July 2014).


Please find the requested information attached, titled table 1.

2. A note of any instance wherein the amount reimbursed to Professor Thrift did not match the amount requested in the submitted Form FP16a.

The University holds no such record of any incidences of this nature.

3. Copies of flight bookings detailing flight costs and details (airline, flight, class, etc.) for Professor Nigel Thrift during the year ended 31 July 2014 (spanning from 1 Aug 2013 to 31 July 2014).

Please find the requested information attached, titled table 2.

In the interest of minimizing any printing costs, I would like scanned digital copies of the documents pertaining to Parts 1 and 3 of this request.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, requesters are entitled to the information not the document in which the information is held and we consider that we have fulfilled your request for information.

I trust that this information will be helpful to you. Should you require any clarification, please contact me.

Yours sincerely,
Darren Wallis

Darren Wallis | Director of Strategic Programme Delivery
University House | University of Warwick | Coventry | CV4 8UW

-- Attachments: Table1.xlsx (Table1.pdf) and Table2.docx (Table2.pdf)