Mobile phone costs (FOI)

Request

A

Please provide details of the total amount spent by States departments on monthly mobile phone bills between October 2014 and February 2018. Please provide the information broken down by department and each month's total cost.

B

Please give details of individuals within the civil service who between October 2014 and February 2018 have incurred a monthly bill in excess of £250 and the month in which that bill was issued. If names cannot be released, please provide details of the department in which the individual worked at the time the bill was issued.

C

Please provide details of each minister's States mobile phone spend for the period between October 2014 and February 2018.

Response

A

Figures below are taken from the financial system. Any charges for minister’s mobile phones during the above period are included in the monthly mobile phone bills. The figures do not necessarily reflect usage in relation to mobile telephone calls and data in a particular month but reflect the bills paid. Costs may include the purchase and service of all mobile devices, phones, laptops and tablets.

It should be noted that the make-up of departments / services may have changed between years or during the years 2014 and 2018. For example, Jersey Property Holdings transferred from the States of Jersey Treasury and Resources Department to the Department for Infrastructure in 2016. Children’s Services moved from the Health and Social Services Department to the Chief Minister’s Department in 2018.

The Department for Infrastructure figures include the Jersey Fleet Management and Jersey Car Parks States Trading Operations.

The Social Security Department’s historic procedures meant that prior to 2017 there was a reliance on paper copy invoices, and little information was readily accessible from the system over and above the section incurring the spend and the type of spend. These costs were not broken down to the different elements services provided by telecommunication providers (ie mobile phones, telephones, data and so on). The records prior to 2017 have been stored in archived boxes. It is estimated that it would take more than 12.5 hours for the department to collate the required information in order to respond to the request.

The Social Security Department from 2017 changed the way their bills were administered meaning electronic records from this time can be broken down sufficiently. These can be provided to the applicant if required.

Phone cost - October 2014 to February 2018

B and C

The States of Jersey’s corporate mobile phone contract operates on a special tariff that adds the usage of all mobile phones together, including officials and ministers. The overall charges are then apportioned back out to departments without individual details. The cost can also depend on when the usage occurs rather than usage volume. This means that some usage may generate a different charge depending on when it occurs, it is therefore not appropriate to disclose monthly charges as these may be misleading.

Article applied

Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 - 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.