Correspondence in relation to supply teachers during Covid-19 (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey (on behalf of the States Greffe) and published on 25 August 2020.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

A

Please produce (or tell me specifically where these can be found) a copy of all responses (e-mails, letters, official records of telephone calls/meetings virtual or otherwise) Education Department have provided to Scrutiny regarding this specific section of the NEU’s submission:

“Of concern to the NEU was the way in which Supply Teachers were dealt with. It seemed that whichever department was dealing with this issue they had little idea, or if not, then sympathy for supply teachers who mainly work on a Zero hours type basis of ad hoc hourly or daily requests for work. Neither do they have easy communication with Government communications systems. Most have been left with no work and thus no pay. It was galling to see that while the Government was prepared to offer financial assistance to private business and their non-working staff, they would deny their own loyal staff any recompense. We believe that this still needs to be addressed and if a decision is reached to offer financial support it should be back dated.”

B
Please produce (or tell me specifically where these can be found) a copy of the response (e-mails, letters, official records of telephone calls/meetings virtual or otherwise) on this point promised to Scrutiny during the meeting of 11th May 2020:

“The Panel questioned the Minister about supply teachers, their entitlement through the Co-funded Payment Scheme and the claims process in light of the Covid-19 crisis. The Panel raised concern around the claims process and who the claim should be directed to, whether the Education Department or the Social Security Department. The Minister could not confirm the exact process; however, she said she would find out and share the process with the Panel.”

Response

The States Greffe holds two items of correspondence relating to this subject, as follows:

A
Correspondence dated 11th May 2020 from the Private Secretary of the Minister for Education regarding queries received from zero-hours supply staff. 

11 May correspondence

Personal details have been redacted from the correspondence in accordance with Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

B
Correspondence dated 22nd May 2020 from the Minister for Education.  This correspondence has been uploaded to the States Assembly website and may be found at the following link:

Minister for Education response to Scrutiny

Article applied

Article 25      Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2)     Information is absolutely exempt information if –
(a)     it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and
(b)     its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3)     In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.

This response has been issued on behalf of the States Greffe. The States Greffe is responsible for the information held by (and on behalf of) both itself and the States Assembly.  Neither the States Assembly nor the States Greffe form part of the Government of Jersey and the Government was not involved either in the examination and retrieval of any information required for this response, nor in the drafting of the response itself.

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