Deaths of homeless people (FOI)

​Request

I would like to request data on how many people classified as "homeless" or "rough sleepers" have died in Jersey, from January 2000 to date. I would also like an explanation of what criteria was used to classify someone as "homeless" or "rough sleeper".

I would also like for the cause of death to be specified as well as the age of the deceased.

Response

The information is not held.

There is no standard approach / criteria for recording this information on death certificates. To check what has been recorded would necessitate all parish registrars examining all death certificates for the period in question which would exceed the 12.5 hour time limit permitted by the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law.

Articles applied

Article 3 Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.